Hailing from Red Deer, Alberta, Canada, Richard Guido has truly redefined what it means to drag and drive a vehicle. Whereas many competitors trailer their car (and sometimes their drag-and-drive trailer as well), Guido drives his 1965 Pontiac GTO all the way to the event in Florida — from western Canada!
Sick Week 2024 wasn’t the only part of their vacation plans as Guido and his 81-year-old father, Mike, also added a stop in Amarillo, Texas, on the way down to check out a car for a friend, and rather than head northwest towards home, they went south towards Bradenton again to meet up with Cooper Bogetti for a podcast. All told the Guidos covered around 8,000 miles — including the 1,000 or so for Sick Week.
“You know you’re going for a ride when Google Maps pulls up the entire globe,” Guido tells us.
Last year, Guido logged some 25,000 miles on the road driving the classic Poncho to Sick Week, Death Week, Rocky Mountain Race Week, and Miles of Mayhem, which is a Canadian drag-and-drive event.
That alone is enough to impress anyone, but there is way more to Guido, his GTO, and their driving adventures. Motivation for the Goat comes from a 521 cubic-inch Pontiac engine that burns C16 racing gasoline and is boosted by a BorgWarner 95mm turbocharger from Work Turbochargers making 17 psi of air-to-water intercooled boost.
Keeping the GTO Pontiac-powered and competitive in an age where LS swaps are all the rage is cool enough, but Guido’s GTO is also one of the quickest stick-shifted drag-and-drive machines anywhere. With 8-second elapsed times, Guido’s GTO claimed the manual class win at both previous Sick Week events. His transmission of choice is a G-Force Racing Transmissions-upgraded T-56 Magnum, and he uses a Black Magic single-disc adjustable clutch that he tweaks per track conditions to get the power back to a Ford 9-inch rearend.
Guido has been competing in drag-and-drive events since he entered Hot Rod’s Drag Week in 2013, and he and his father Mike have been driving the Pontiac to events ever since. According to Guido’s father, his son has owned the Pontiac GTO for about 20 years and has logged around 100,000 miles of racing and driving with it.
In the off-season, Guido yanked the power steering and brakes to reduce its curb weight, as it checks in at just under 4,000 pounds of Pontiac goodness, and he also dry-decked the Indian Adventures block.
“I’ve been sideways at 145 mph on the dragstrip and the power steering…
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