Throwback Thursday: Millen Won Sebring, Daytona, Le Mans in Nissan 370ZXT

Steve Millen dominated IMSA Exxon Supreme GTS competition in the early 1990s, driving a red, white and blue Nissan 300ZXT prepared by Clayton Cunningham.

Red, white and blue Nissans figured prominently in American sports car races since the mid-1970s, when Bob Sharp raced Datsuns carrying those colors. Sharp, Jim Fitzgerald, Paul Newman and Bob’s son Scott were winners for the team through the Eighties.

Don Devendorf formed Electramotive Engineering in 1975, and went racing in red, white and blue Datsuns and Nissans. He won championships in IMSA RS, IMSA GTU (1979) and IMSA GTO (1982), winning 16 races in Camel GT competition. He then set his sights on the GT Prototype class, and his NPTI Nissans were winners in the heyday of IMSA, winning four straight titles for Geoff Brabham from 1988-91.

Another regular was Bob Leitzinger, who fielded normally aspirated Nissans in GTU competition, eventually joined in the car by his son Butch.

While Nissan was winding down its Prototype efforts, Cunningham’s factory GT program came into its own. Millen won the GTS championship in 1992, and won the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring the following year before injuries suffered at Watkins Glen ended his season.

In 1994, the team came into its own. Showing remarkable recovery from his injuries, Millen won the GTS pole for the Rolex 24 At Daytona. With his own car sidelined, Millen then joined Scott Pruett, Butch Leitzinger and Paul Gentilozzi in winning overall in the Rolex 24 by a whopping 24 laps – a margin of victory that has not been approached since then. The team led all but 111 of the 707 laps, including the final 427, as a GT car won overall for the first time since 1983.

Millen took his momentum to Sebring, where he joined Johnny O’Connor and John Morton in another overall victory in the No. 75 Nissan 300ZXT. The team won by five laps over the lead World Sports Car prototype, while winning the GTS class by 28 laps.

“The big thing I remember from that victory is that Sebring is very tough on a car, and we didn’t have to baby it,” said Millen, currently enjoying the summer in his native New Zealand. “You could drive it hard the whole time and not worry about the gearbox, motor or anything. That was fantastic, because you could concentrate on driving.”

Millen won the next IMSA race at Road Atlanta, and added a later victory at Portland to a second GTS title.

Along the way, the team went to Le Mans – looking to win the “Big Three” of endurance races. Millen joined Morton and O’Connell and finished fifth overall and first in the IMSA GTS category.

“The car was an evolution,” said Millen. “Trevor Harris was the designer, and it started out as a standard 300Z. We had five years of development with the car. We won the championship in 1992, and then won another championship and all the big races in 1994. That was the result of better brakes, transmission, shock absorbers and everything – it was a matter of fine-tuning everything in the car. And the car was so reliable that you could run it as hard as you could in the long races, and it would stay consistent the whole time. Only eight chassis were built over that time, and for some reason chassis No. 7 seemed to be the best of them.”

Millen repeated at Sebring in 1995 in a normally aspirated CCR Nissan 300ZX and was leading the points before suffering career-ending injuries in an incident at Road Atlanta.

Millen was the all-time leader in IMSA GTS history with 20 victories and 23 poles. He currently owns and operates Stillen, an after-market performance parts company specializing in Nissan vehicles which he started in 1986. He spends the majority of his time at his adopted home in Costa Mesa, California. Millen continues to drive in occasional historic competition, driving his prize No. 75 Nissan chassis No. 7 is part of his collection at Stillen.