Dave Ward (team Manager)

My dad was a self-employed welder who had his own shop, where I learned to
weld and fabricate at an early age. I also had an opportunity to work in a friend’s machine shop, which added to my fabrication knowledge. I would hang out with my older brothers, who were involved in cars and slalom racing, which is how I caught the bug. As soon as I had a driver’s license, I would go to Ontario Motor Speedway, Riverside Raceway, Mesa Marin, and Orange Show Speedway to help friends (like Bill Osborne) with their stock cars and sports cars, learning everything I could. I had a 1967 Cougar that was my street car, which I also raced until I was 18. That’s when I bought a 1963 Corvette Roadster that I built to race in Solo 1 and SCCA regional events. In 1980, at the age of 22, I won the regional championship in a sports racer with a Larry Mollicone motor.

After being out of racing for eight years, I built — with the help of Bill Osborne
— a 1984 tube chassis Camaro that I ran in NASCAR and SSCA Super Production. I ended up working for Bill for a few years, then went to the last two La Carrera races that Big Red was in, then on to Raceway Motorsports (Dan and RJ Gottlieb’s Trans-Am and IMSA team) as their fabricator. 

After working a couple of years there, I opened my own shop, and a year later, I had the opportunity to takeover Dan and RJ’s racing program, which at the time was a Sportsman car, running the Sportsman Series at Willow Springs Raceway in Rosamond, California. After the series ended in 2000, RJ wasn’t racing at the time, and I built myself a Nostalgia Fuel Altered, campaigning it in Nostalgia Eliminator with friend Bob Dietz. We ran the car 14 seasons, winning miscellaneous races at Goodguys events, a championship in NHRA Heritage Series, and two championships in ANRA Series. I still take care of Dan and RJ’s racing interests with Big Red, which has been challenging and fun. I want to thank Dan and RJ for the opportunity to work on and grow with Big Red.