Sebring 1964 was the first real test for the privately campaigned Corvette Grand Sports. Chevrolet was no longer around to supply parts and provide assistance. Factory support had never been official, but their absence was instantly felt.
Delmo Johnson purchased the #14 car from Grady Davis, after Don Yenko drove it at Augusta. Preparation began immediately for Sebring. Externally the newly renumbered #3 Grand Sport appeared to be as well prepared as any other car in the field. Wearing the #3, the Mecom car was the only Grand Sport to feature ducts to aid with brake cooling in the top of the Plexiglass rear window. Other distinctive features added to the Coupes for the Sebring cars included leather straps on the engine lid and fender extensions so that the wider rear tires wouldn’t extend beyond the bodywork. Also unique to the #3 car at Sebring is the whip antenna used for radio communications and the fact that #3 ran with clear headlight lenses, where every other time a Grand Sport raced it carried fiberglass lens covers!
Delmo Johnson qualified the Coupe twelfth, immediately behind the Gurneys Cobra. He good off to a poor start but immediately started a climb back up through the field. Right from the early laps, something wasn’t quite right — the Coupe would wander all over the track, “but it got you from corner to corner” according to Johnson.
Mechanical woes led to a number of pit stops and the pairing of Johnson/Morgan finally finished thirty-second overall. Johnson reported about the Grand Sport: “Brute horsepower. It was like a dragster — the only car I ever drove that would lift the front wheels off the ground in all four gears.”