La Belle Vision Quest
Quebec’s Gerard Millette had a vision. It took almost five years to make that a reality but the wait was most certainly worth it…..
During the recent NHRA 4-Wide Nationals in North Carolina it was the all new S&G Racing ‘63 Corvette Top Sportsman car that caused quite a big buzz within the pit area. The marquee event included the debut of a simply spectacular new machine, one of the nicest cars ever based from Canada. The finished result is the end product of a labor of love for a husband and wife team that includes Suzanne Millette.
Gerard & Suzanne Millette
Based from St. Etienne PQ (about halfway between Montreal and Quebec City), Millette’s Corvette is for sure the most serious venture so far within Gerald’s 25-year history in drag racing. Five years ago, he suffered a very serious set back when he crashed his Chevy Beretta at Lebanon Valley NY. It was thus that incident which set things in motion.
“Instead of rebuilding that car we decided to take our time and build a new car that would be faster,” explained Suzanne. “This is Gerard’s dream car — he had always wanted a 1963 Corvette and it took us 4-years to build it.”
The stunning machine, which will be for sure in serious consideration for both “Best Appearing” and “Best Engineered” event awards from here on, was in fact meticulously self-constructed by Gerard and Suzanne who are by trade a pipefitter and a welder respectively.
“We bought a kit from Wally Stroupe and we did all of the fabrication – the entire car,” Suzanne continued. “Any bracket you can image on this car was self made. All of the carbon fiber and all of the small details were all Gerard’s vision. He is an excellent engineer and we made all of his ideas a reality.”
The team has installed a 780 CID engine program by Sunset Racecraft (Texas) within the car’s frame rails. They also employ a powerglide transmission by Select Transmission (New York).
After testing the car to the 1/8th mile briefly late last year, the car ran extremely well during its official debut atConcord, which were its first runs ever down the full ¼ mile. In fact after qualifying in Top Sportsman, Millette was impressive, winning his first two rounds in competition hitting consecutive laps of 7.012 secs (7.00 dial) and 6.998 secs (6.94 dial).
“We did well here and the car ran very straight,” Gerard added. “Eventually we expect to have it running in the 6.8 secs zone.”
Gerard and Suzanne funded their car 100% as independents. They were quick to cite very valuable support received from David & Nancy Wooding who reside in New York State. The Wooding’s helped them greatly by ordering and accumulating all of the parts necessary for their project during its construction period.
The S&G Racing Corvette will focus its 2012 season within the NHRA’s Northeast Division One Top Sportsman class circuit.
The S&G Racing Corvette ran well during it's debut at NHRA Concord -- winning two rounds in TS
Posted by: Bruce Biegler – Photos by: Bruce Biegler
