Being at the top of a given class can be tough, as every competitor will give you their best shot each time you put the car in the beams on race day. East Coast racer Sam Gottier is a former multi-time Heavy Street class champion that was one of the best, and he knows what its like to feel the heat from every racer around. Gottier and his crew chief, Pat Budd, have teamed up with Dennis MacPherson at DMC Racing to take his 1971 Chevelle known as the “Red Hulk” to the next level and dominate again at the track.

The Red Hulk has been a part of Gottier’s life for a very long time. “The car originally started out as my high school daily driver that I bought for $800 to work on during the weekends back in 1986. It has kind of progressed from there. It really took off when the car went to Procar in 2006 to get a back-half done … that’s when it got the 25.2 back-half they were specializing in at the time,” Gottier says.

Over the years, the Chevelle has run several combinations, from your basic small-block Chevy, to a few different big-block setups, all the way to a 762 cubic inch powerplant on three stages nitrous with fuel injection. The new engine, however, is a 521 cubic inch BAE Hemi with a Mike Janis modified roots blower, backed by a Rossler Turboglide.

The need for the combination change comes from everybody getting quicker. “We were winning a lot of races and wanted to stay on top — everyone else was stepping up, and catching up — this has been a project five years in the making,” Gottier explains.

“DMC built the new headers, fuel cell, and all the other items needed to do the conversion, which is a lot more than it sounds since it’s a totally different world. They added some extra safety features, like a pour-in seat, head wrap, and a new transmission tunnel, along with other details. This is the culmination of what Pat Budd did with the original chassis design, mixed with the changes that were made at DMC and their beautiful work,” Gottier says.

Gottier plans to be racing soon, and will compete in a class at Atco Dragway called Extreme Big Tire, as well as Quick 8 and Outlaw Big Tire at other events.