In Memoriam: Doug Azzarito

With sadness I report the recent death of Doug Azzarito, who struggled mightily with cancer and did not make it to 2013. Those who have been around a long while will remember him as one of the core creators of this forum back in 1997 or so (it seemed earlier). I have personally stayed in some contact with Doug, as I see him from time to time at SCCA races and we most recently raced together in SRF at High Plains Raceway in Colorado. Condolences to his family and friends, especially since this is the Holiday Season. Services for Doug are as follows:

2:00PM
Monday, December 31st
Beck Funeral Home
15709 Ranch Road 620
Austin, Tx 78717
(512) 244-3772
http://www.beckchapels.com/?page=roundrockfuneralhome

In lieu of flowers, donations to the Livestrong foundation would be appreciated.
www.livestrong.org

Thoughts and prayers to his family and friends.

+1 on what Taco said.
Never met him but watched my dad battle cancer so I know very well the toll it takes on family and friends.

Wow - I hadn't heard of him for years. He was truly instrumental in getting the VCA website going strong in the early days. Prayers to he and his family.

(BTW - Keith, you're one of the VERY few people with a forum join date earlier than mine.)

Are you the guys with the orange / black ACR's ?

Wow, I am very sad to hear the news. I met Doug early in my viper ownership experience. Doug was a really great guy. He was a genuine car guy always willing to help out, and also great driving instructor. I brought my 65 year old father with me to TWS for a Drivers Edge event and he met Doug there in the pits. Doug was giving me some driving instruction (I was a newbie) and also helping me put better brake pads on my new at the time 98 GTS. My father had never been on the track (he was just there to watch - yeah right) and since Doug was a instructor he offered to take him out for a few hot laps. There sitting in his black 94 rt/10 with no top on it, cruises by my paddock area yelling out to my dad "your never to old to try this old man--- grab a helmet and get in". So with a little coaxing from myself, Mike P. and John N. outa the Houston club, my dad slowly got in.
After a full session run they return to the paddock. My dad pulls off the helmet, flush red in the face and a grin ear to ear says loudly "Now I gotta get me one of these son of a b****s". Everybody laughed so hard at the old man and Doug said "I ran it all out, I didn't give him a parade lap" My dad was as you say "bitten". So my dad waited patiently and when the 2000 steel grey color came out he got a GTS.
I don't believe he would of done it if it wasn't for Doug taking him out on the track and showing him what that car could do. Doug always had a way of making people feel apart of the group even if they weren't track rats or had a viper. When he was told about my dads GTS purchase, his response was like a proud father, a huge smile with the words --- "Glad I could help!"
My father and I are going to miss him!

Great story Viper Pit.
My prayers to Doug and his family.

Godspeed, Doug, Godspeed.

Very sorry to hear.

Doug made post #0001 on the www.viperclub.org forums back in 1997 welcoming people to the site. HTML days were a lot different than the UBB and VB software that came along several years later.

I'll leave it in the raw form that he sent it to me in so many years ago except for the full e-mail address.

Doug would spend hours cleaning up 1,000 posts at a time for archiving.

One of the best reads of his was a report that I think made it into Viper Magazine where he was writing about firing up the Dell lap top, tracking times, and having a great time being there and describing the event in such a way that we all felt we were there with him.




The Viper Club of America Discussion Board Archive


Volume 1: Messages 0001 - 0999

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----------------------------------------------------------------------------

MESSAGE>0001
SUBJECT>Welcome to the Viper Discussion Board!
POSTER>Doug Azzarito
EMAIL>[email protected]
DATE>Friday, 5 December 1997, at 8:20 p.m.

<CENTER><FONT COLOR="#3333FF"><FONT SIZE=+4>Welcome!</FONT></FONT>&nbsp;<
IMG SRC="http://www.viperclub.org/bbs/images/homer.gif" HEIGHT=53 WIDTH=
59></CENTER>

This is the latest addition to the Viper Club of America's web site.
Here, you can leave messages for other Viper enthusiasts to read, and
then come back later to read what others have to say. Exchange tips, buy/
sell/swap, or just tell stories about yuppies in their BMWs gawking at
those 335-35's!


If you have any questions about this system, please feel free to post a
message here, or send me <A HREF="mailto:azzarito@*****">email</A>.

Enjoy!

Doug Azzarito

<I>Discussion Board Administrator</I>