After completing a 14-day investigation, the Big Red Camaro crewhas determined that the fire that ended the team's run at the 100th Anniversary of the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb began when the bolts retaining one of the fuel rails failed. The resulting fuel leak ignited, and spread through the rest of the car.

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When we caught wind that Big Red, R.J. Gottlieb's monstrous 1969 Camaro, had caught fire during testing ahead of the 2016 Pikes Peak International Hill Climb (PPIHC), we couldn't believe what we were hearing. The team had just wrapped up about six months worth of updateson Big Red -- after nearly 30 years of duty -- and began to shake it down for the 100th anniversary of PPIHC. The new triple-nickle, 555ci big-block was performing well, but the team ran into cooling issues during the early tire test/practice sessions, just a few weeks ahead of the actual race week.

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The team returned to California with a to-do list for testing, and hit Buttonwillow Raceway to diagnose some of the new build's teething issues. With a wiring issue discovered, the cooling problem was seemingly sorted, so R.J. returned to the track for more testing. On that lap out, R.J. began to notice smoke, and pulled Big Red over. It didn't take long for the fuel-fire to engulf the car, but R.J. did escape uninjured. The Buttonwillow safety teams were able to extinguish the flames before detrimental damage was done.

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The Big Red team feels confident they can rebuild.