This 1964 Corvette roadster started life as a GM executive car shipped to the Houston Chevrolet Zone Office. After that, my first piece of documentation is an SCCA logbook (032-269) issued on June 3, 1973 to Dr. John Matthews of Houston. The car still wore its original Daytona Blue paint when the logbook was issued. Doc later painted it red.
Doc enthusiastically raced the car in SCCA SW Division from 1973 to 1976. It raced at many regional tracks and airport courses now lost to history. Among the entries:
- Aloe Army Airfield, Victoria TX
- Fort Sumner Airport, Fort Sumner NM
- Greater Southwest Raceway, Ft. Worth TX
- Hutchinson Sunflower Aerodrome, Yoder KS
- Chennault Field, Lake Charles LA
- Texas World Speedway, College Station TX
One of the more interesting races the car ran was the 1000KM of Mexico City in October of 1973. Doc’s 1974 SCCA license application notes that he finished 21st out of 45. That race was won by a 911RSR driven by Rojas/Van Beuren/Rebaque/Haywood. I’m pretty sure Doc had a co-driver, but I don’t know the name. If anyone has connections in Mexico . . . .
Doc raced often enough and finished well enough in SW Division to get runoff invites. He was invited and entered in 1974 but couldn’t get the car prepped in time. He made it in 1975. He had a hard crash in practice that mangled the driver’s side rear. The car’s left rear frame rail extension still bears the scars from that crash. An overnight repair got Doc rolling again and he managed to finish 11th. As told by SW Division Corvette racer Don Hines:
Ski (Russ Bonkoske) maintained the car the year it went to Atlanta. The left rear fender was knocked off in a practice accident. Ski repaired it with Duraglass wand spray cans. He modified the trailing arms himself to accommodate 12” tires. Seems like I remember lots of Guldstrand stuff on it too. I met Doc about 1974/75. Don’t know much about the car before that. I remember him talking about racing it in Mexico before I met him.
Doc sold the car to Ski in 1976 and it did a couple more seasons in SW Division before being put out to pasture. After SCCA, it was drag-raced, abandoned in a field, found and restored as a show car and finally turned into a vintage racer in 1995. Charlie Barns owned and raced the car for many years in CVAR. Charlie is well known as the racer that beat Ken Miles at Green Valley Raceway upon the Shelby GT350’s debut.
I bought the car in 2019 off a Craigslist ad. It was part of Charlie’s estate. What I bought was an old, beat-up vintage racing Corvette that needed a refresh and a home. There was some documentation including Doc’s and Ski’s names, but nothing indicating all the history it had. I started peeling the onion, the more I dug the more I found. Shout out to the Registry of Corvette Race Cars (connected me with Don Hines), Poplar Bluff Motorsports Park (connected me with Russ Bonkoske who is still racing!) and IMRRC (SCCA archives).
Given the car’s history, I decided to restore it as correctly as I could. That included returning it to its original color, body configuration and mechanicals. The block and heads on the car are correct-for-1964 GM castings. It has a flat-tappet cam and 11:1 pop-tops. Suspension is GM F41. The markings reproduce how the car looked at the 1975 CSPRRC with a combination of NOS and reproduction stickers. Stripping the car for paint confirmed its history: red from the show car restoration, Ski’s yellow, Doc’s red and finally GM’s blue. It’s a wonderful car to drive. Even without the “restomod” parts many run today, the car is quick and fun.
So, that’s my Craigslist find story. Intrigued? Talk to me about vintage racing . . . it is racing and so much more. We’d love to have you join us.
Submitted by Ricardo Price
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