It’s Baaaaaaack, and Chewing Up the Competition Again

Big Red gradually re-emerged onto the automotive performance scene over time and participated in a number of events like: The Optima Ultimate Street Car Invitational, The Texas Mile, Vintage Auto Racing: Big Bore Bash at Willow Springs and the Mojave Mile, taking top honors at nearly every single event. Big Red was also featured in the 2009 Film, the 4th installment of the Fast & Furious franchise.

Back To the One That Started It All

Finally after 15 years since it’s last SSCC, RJ and Co-Driver Kris Kaufman set their sights on Hwy 318 for Big Red’s first Road Race of the 21st Century. Now Bigger, Badder, Stronger and Faster-Big Red looked to raise the bar and put yet another record in the books.  The instant Big Red left the line though it was clear that something was wrong, for the first painful 20 miles of the course faltering fuel pumps struggled to feed the angry 598 as it blubbered and coughed, starving for fuel. After killing the engine and rebooting the entire system, the beast sprung to life. Big Red roared to 7000rpm and in an instant the onboard GPS was reading 200, 205, 215mph!!! Now that the car had come to life RJ drove perhaps harder than he ever had before knowing that to overcome such a tremendous setback from the first 20 miles would require near supersonic speeds. In the end, there was no way to defeat the clock and such an abysmal 1st sector performance. Big Red clocked an average speed of 163.932 due to the mechanical issues, which was still good enough for 1st place among 3 competitors in the Unlimited Class, but far off the mark she had set so many years earlier.

Dusting Off the Cobwebs

Big Red comes out of hibernation and returns to Ely where it all began. Upgrades to Big Red included a litany of 21st century technology to keep current as things had advanced greatly in the performance auto industry in a mere 10 years. They would add safety countermeasures, improved racing seats, more reinforcing of the roll cage and better brakes among the many mechanical improvements. This of course was in response to the most remarkable upgrade to Big Red in the form of an all new 598 cubic inch Larry Mollicone crafted power plant that produces nearly 1100 horsepower! It had been a long time since the car had been put through the paces so the team chose to participate only in the Baer Brakes sponsored Z2Z Challenge – an acceleration/deceleration contest where participants have a maximum of 1 mile to achieve top speed and then bring it to a halt as quickly as possible. Big Red again took top honors in the contest.

In late 2003 RJ returns from the east cost and resumes life in Southern California. He promptly decides it’s time to bring Big Red out of hibernation and, maybe take it to a few nostalgic car shows. This turned into a full-blown restoration and soon the competitive hunger returned. Dan and RJ updated the car to once again feast on Italian food and anything else the competitive circuit could put forth.

The Outlaw Retires

For reasons no one can really remember, Big Red was sent out to pasture. Dan Gottlieb loaned the car to Don Laughlin’s Auto Museum in Laughlin, NV where it sat and was admired for nearly 10 years.  Maybe it was that she had already done so much, cast into the spotlight and constantly forced to exceed expectations that any normal car would cower from.Maybe it was just that her driver, the only man who had ever piloted her, had to go to the east coast where school and work were waiting. In any event, she sat comfortably in the museum adjacent to the casino where over the years tens if not hundreds of thousands of passerby looked on and admired her.

The Outlaw Legend Continues

Big Red ran SSCC again in 1990 taking top honors in the event for the second year in a row, but due to a leaky intake valve ran a slower average speed (189.25mph). Then Big Red was back in Ely, NV in the spring of 91 for the companion event to the SSCC, the NORC, exactly the same event, but promoters decided if one is fun why not run it twice a year.

Big Red Restores the Glory of the American Muscle Car!

The first one had been such a huge success: The second running of the Silver State Classic was expected to be much like the first–a group of high rollers bringing together their European exotics and assorted oddball sports cars (with a handful of Corvettes, Panteras, and other domestics thrown in) to let it all hang out on a closed section of highway in the remote desert of Ely, Nevada… The Euro supercar owners at best tolerated the Vette guys and were confident that a red Italian car would run the highest speed of the event. It would be a red car, that’s for sure, but not one of theirs. That’s when it happened. Amid the polite conversations of tire ratings and frequent V-12 tune-ups there came a rumble that seemed to generate from well below the earth’s crust. We hot rodders in attendance recognized it as the sound of a high-compression big-block Chevy firing up. The rest weren’t quite sure what was happening until R.J. Gottlieb backed Big Red out of the trailer, clunked the Jerico into first gear, and slowly idled the surging, barking, bright red ’69 Camaro between the rows of shiny new sports cars toward its space next to father Dan’s hot rodded ’86 Corvette. After R.J. backed it in and hit the switch to kill the 800-horse Rat motor, the world seemed eerily quiet. Normally, a crowd would gather around such a spectacle, but not here. Not today. The other competitors kept their distance, and all they could do was stare, mouths agape in sad realization that they would all be racing for Second Place, and even then, nobody would care. For this garish American “godawful hotrod” was sure to not only eat their lunch, but to also spit it back in their face and walk off with their trophy wife…Sure enough, with HOT ROD’s Joe Pettitt doing little more than providing right-side ballast, Big Red destroyed the 94-mile course in 27 minutes, 54 seconds, for an average speed of 197.99 mph and a radar-recorded 222-mph top-end velocity. That was in 1989, and the legend of Big Red had just begun.” ©“Hot Rod Magazine 2005 by Rob Kinnan.

It was also in this year after making headlines and having earned the respect of the automotive world, that Big Red was invited the Nissan/Calsonic 5.7 mile high bank oval test track in Casa Grande, AZ for a 24 car shootout of the worlds quickest cars put on by Road & Track Magazine.  Big Red astonished everyone in attendance posting a top speed of 203mph on her first run. Editors of the magazine were so confounded, and frankly a little embarrassed since their magazine catered to the late model and Euro crowd that they had the radar gun checked and asked Big Red to do it again.  She did, and when the magazine came out, the Camaro was conspicuously cropped out of the cover photo, but still very much included in an article that no doubt had the editors saying, “What were we thinking???”

The Outlaw

This would be the final La Carrera for Big Red. Numerous protests since the win in 1988 that, “Big Red is no longer a homologated car, but more of a pure bred race car with a Camaro shell draped over it” had been too much for the event promoters to ignore and following this race in 89, Big Red was never invited back.But all this only fueled the legend and from this point on Outlaw Racer was the handle that Big Red wholeheartedly embraced.RJ in Big Red led the ’89 race and was easily cruising his way to another victory when the clutch let go and Big Red retired from La Carrera for good with a DNF.

The Great American Road Race is Born

After several years running the Open Road Race in Mexico growing concerns over racer safety and hospitals prompt Dan Gottlieb, Cliff Jones, Steve Waldman, Roger Ward and others help organize THE Great American Road Race. A hastily arranged, First Annual Silver State Classic Challenge is held outside of Ely, NV. Dan drives his souped up 86 Corvette.R.J. and Big Red stayed home, not expecting the event to be such a huge success.First place goes to Jim Liautaud, Jr. in a Testarossa at 162.58 mph average. Dan places 2nd at 156 mph.

What a Difference a Year Makes

After nearly a year under construction Dan & RJ debut “Big Red” at the 3rd Annual La Carrera Classica.  With a NASCAR chassis built by Bill Osborne and the same 540ci engine as before, RJ and Co-Driver Osborne cruise to a decisive victory and set the record at the Mexican Road Race.