Nothing gets the blood flowing quite like running a few hot laps around a road course. If you’re behind the wheel of a well handling car, you’ll have even more fun. The experience is something you’ll not soon forget and the memory will undoubtedly fuel stories you’ll be eager to tell for years to come.
For Mark Rife of St. Cloud, FL, making memories is what this hobby is all about, and he has been fortunate enough to make a lot of memories over the last 38-plus years with the same car. And, best of all, many of those memories involve running laps on one road course or another. However, as Rife explained, this split-window Corvette was a long way from track ready when he and his wife Carol bought it nearly four decades ago. “We bought this ’63 Corvette in ’72 from a friend who was trying to rebuild the car back to stock condition – it was an old SCCA race car.” Rife continued, “It was a basket case when we bought it, but after getting turned on to auto crossing and solo road racing by my friend Bill Wilson, I set out to put the pile of parts back on track, so-to-speak.”
Mark used his friend Bill’s ’64 Corvette coupe as a template, and spent long hours over three months to get it in a condition good enough to take it to a small show hosted by the local Corvette club. Being around fellow Corvette enthusiasts was all it took to get Mark excited to finish the car. He explained, “After finding used headers, used Goodyear Polyglass tires, and a stock motor and suspension, my wife and I set off for our first autocross.” Despite a reportedly modest showing by the rookie couple, the taste of competitive driving had hooked both of them and sparked many memories to come.
Rife eventually began vintage racing his Corvette, but retired the ’63 a couple of years later when he got involved with racing former Winston Cup cars. Other SCCA and vintage cars came and went while the history-rich ’63 sat under a cover. Rife grew to miss the Corvette and ultimately decided it was time to get it back on the road. He explained, “My wife and friends asked, ‘What are you doing now to the old ’63?’ I would reply, ‘Making more memories.’”
Mark started by removing the old race chassis and drivetrain, and found a donor car for those parts. He bought a stripped down red and white ’69 Corvette race car and installed the guts of the ’63 to create a car he races in multiple vintage racing events. With the race parts put to good use, Mark set out toward a goal, “I wanted a car I could drive to the track and race, and that I could drive in the One Lap of America event.” With the help of his lifelong friend Mike Combs, Mark began the two-year process of building a corner carving split-window.
The foundation for Rife’s Corvette is a Street Shop chassis featuring C4 Corvette suspension components front and rear with adjustable coil-over shocks. The aftermarket chassis provides greatly improved handling characteristics over the original design. Keeping with the modern theme, Rife installed a 505-horsepower 427ci LS7, which is used in current Corvette Z06 models. The all-aluminum 7.0L V-8, which features a dry sump oil system, is teamed with a Tremec TKO 600 five-speed manual transmission.
Mark installed a set of L88 Corvette fender flares to house massive rubber front and rear. The extra wide fenders help contribute to the road race flavor of Rife’s otherwise original bodied split-window.
While Rife told us he hasn’t visited a chassis dyno yet, he did say enthusiastically that he’s been driving it whenever possible, “I’ve been able to drive it to events, race it, and still get 22 mpg – all on pump gas!” When asked what has been his most memorable experience with this car, Mark fondly recalled a long list of memories, one equally as good as the next. Mark listed a few of his favorites, “Campaigning the Corvette in autocross and road course events with the NCCC where I made life long friends. Going to an autocross with my young daughter sitting in the back holding on to the roll bar. My son Chad’s first time racing the car he loves so much.”
It’s obvious this ’63 Corvette has brought great joy to Mark, his wife Carol, and their children. “I have so many wonderful memories that it would fill a book,” Mark boasted. Here’s to wishing the Rife family another 40 years of memories involving this history-rich ’63 split-window.
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