Douglas Brenner won his first trophy in 1964 driving a 1956 Porsche coupe in
a Porsche Owners Club time trial on the old road racing course in the parking lot of the Del Mar horse racing track. He was 17 years old and even then was doing his own mechanical work. In those days SCCA would not issue a competition license to anyone under 21, so Douglas procured a 1958
Porsche Speedster in 1965, and competed in slaloms and time trials throughout California, taking many fast times of day, and
beating drivers such as Don Wester, George Follmer, and EFR. Douglas
was Porsche Owners Club class N (modified) champion in 1966 and 1967.
Getting his SCCA competition license in 1968 (setting an E production lap record
at drivers training), and drove his E production Speedster to an overall win in the D and E production race. " There was a lot of pressure to win, as my pals Don Devendorf and Elliot Forbes-Robinson had already won
their first races that year."
In 1970, Douglas campaigned a Chevron B15b Formula B
car. Winning many National races that year and the Southern Pacific National
Championship, setting lap records at Willow Springs and Phoenix. Competing in the Continental professional series for FB.
He qualified 2nd in a field of over forty cars in the first Continental race that year at Riverside, set
the fastest race lap at Sears Point, and finishing seventh over-all in the series.
Douglas was still doing all his mechanical work and the driving to every race track, competing
on most the major tracks in the U.S. and Canada. " We had one engine and after about the second race, Dunlop gave me a set of tires
and I ran them for the whole rest of the season, probably six or seven more races. Remember
that these were 100 mile races, so with
today's compounds you probably would need at least two sets of tires per weekend." Autoweek summed up his season best, writing: " Brenner had much more bad luck than
his teammates. But when he had things sorted, he was a contender, finishing in the top six
Douglas went to the SCCA run offs at Road Atlanta, but blew his only engine in the first qualifying
session."
In 1971 he bought one of the last BT29 Brabham brand new but not assembled. Even though the car was new, Brabham had already made a BT35, a monoque BT38, and
another monoque BT40. He competed in Nationals and the first three races of the 1971 Continental Series, finishing second
at Monterey, Mexico, but having electrical
problems in the other two.
In 1972 he was invited, all expenses paid, along with twenty-four other top
FB drivers, to compete in a two race series in Bogotá, Columbia, " All we had
to do was get the car to the airport in Miami. They loaded it with six other
cars on a DC6 and flew us down on a jet. I could see the writing on the wall
when I delivered it to the staging area. There were spare cars and motors galore. That was the first time I had seen that. There
was also a brand new 722 March. " Douglas qualified
well but blew the engine in the first few laps of the race. At the end of the
year he competed it the California north/south runoff at Laguna Seca, out-qualifying
the next car by two seconds. It was his first time at the track, and his last
race for many years.
The 70s found Douglas raising a family. In the 80s he became a fisherman, captaining a gillnet salmon boat in Bristol Bay,
Alaska. " Fishing Bristol
Bay was not like the old man and the sea. The fishery only lasted
about a month in the summer with fishing happening every few days for 12-hour periods.
During those periods it was just plain combat, everyone vying for the available fish."
The rest of the year he worked restoring vintage racecars with legendary fabricators Bruce Burness and Dave Kent and
helped restore Dan Gurneys Arciero Brothers Lotus 19 with Joe Cavaligieri for
Frank Arciero.
In 1988 Douglas returned to racing driving and preparing
the Giant Kirby Racing Honda CRX for the Escort Endurance professional series, spending time at American Hondas Special Projects
compound. " It was the hardest car I ever drove!
Front wheel drive is a very different technique and there are people who are very good at driving these cars. Still, it was fun to drive at night (sometimes in the rain) and compete in 24 hour
races."
In the 90s Douglas wrote jokes for Jay Leno on the Tonight show and wrote and
fabricated comedy props for comedian Bruce Baum. He also worked as a staff comedy
writer and segment producer for Fox TV on Comic Strip Live. He also was paid to
write and episode of Knight Rider. In 1994 he ran an RF93 Van Dieman FC car and started Brenner Fabrication,
where he prepares, repairs and restores racecars and produces racecar accessories.
In 1997, Douglas went to work at the famed Lawrence
Berkeley National Laboratory as a Mechanical Engineering Technician and worked in the Bioinstrumentation Group, making machines
for chemical and biological research, and worked on the Spallation Neutron Source. He
also worked with the Environmental Energy Technologies Division. One of his responsibilities was running the Duct Tape
testing laboratory.
In 2003,Douglas raced a RF94 Van Dieman FC car, winning
the 2003 San Francisco regional championship and finishing 3rd in the
NorPac national division.
In 2004, Douglas raced his RF94 to the NORPAC
championship and late in the year bought an RF99 Van Dieman FC which he
has finished completely rebuilding
and upgrading.
Of his three children, his oldest son Jody and daughter Jessica have their
BS degrees from the University of California Berkeley.
His youngest son Jonathan and Jody have both
purchased Gen 1 RX7's and have joined
their father at the race track. Douglas has
two granddaughters and two more
grandchildren expected in 2008.
His stepson Eddy
has graduated with a Masters degree degree in civil
engineering and a Bachelors Degree in architecture from the University of California Berkeley
and is currently working at Leslie E
Robinson & assoc. New York City. Brenner
Fabrication is going strong selling and
reapairing shock absorbers and making and
selling race car lifts and stands with help from his wife Marlane
.
Douglas
has converted his RF99 Van Dieman to
FS and is looking forward to starting the
2008 racing year.
