Can This 10-Second Canadian-Based Oldsmobile Make Its Mark on Death Week?
It’s been discussed (and in my case, announced) about Richard Guido towing north of 3,000 miles from Canada to participate in the Sick Week Presented by Gear Vendors Overdrive event with his stick-shift Pontiac GTO.
Did you know that someone nearly tripled that mileage for the 2023 event? Rajveer Ahuja did, making the trip from the Yukon, in a round-about kind of way.
“I drove over 10,000 miles just to participate in this year’s Sick Week,” said Rajveer. “I was already on the east coast, so I had to drive back to the Yukon in Canada, get the truck and trailer and come back to Florida for Sick Week. As much as I believe the Cutlass would’ve survived, there was so much snow and salt area that I didn’t want to drive the car through it.”
Granted he didn’t drive the car as Richard does with his GTO, but it’s worth noting that 10,000-mile figure didn’t include Rajveer’s trip home after the event.
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It’s not crazy to think that towing from the Yukon to Arizona for Death Week would be less of a drive than the Florida trip, and although it is less, it’s by only a few hundred miles. “The drive to the event is a challenge in itself,” said Rajveer. “Coming from the Yukon, the remoteness of the area, especially in the winter weather.” He took twelve days to drive to Sick Week, so this one might be less than a week.
Rajveer’s love of the 1967 Oldsmobile Cutlass model played into the yellow coupe he uses on the drag-and-drive events he participates in. “I did search a bit for this one,” he said. It was a basic 330 model, and it was part of a two-car deal I purchased from the family.”
He already had a motor and transmission ready to go in the Cutlass, a 455-based Oldsmobile stock block and crankshaft build, with Gen-1 Edelbrock cylinder heads, a custom roller camshaft, an Edelbrock Victor intake (“hence the awesome hood scoop my friends made”), and a Dale Cubic-worked carburetor.
It sips pump gas for dragging or driving, and it’s backed with a Turbo 400 automatic and a Gear Vendors Overdrive, and finally a stock 12-bolt holding 3.42 gears. Stock suspension tries to handle the Oldsmobile torque, while Rajveer shifts on the stock column shifter.
After participating in Sick Week as well as Sick Summer Presented by TBM Brakes in 2023, Rajveer plans to add Hot Rod Drag Week and Rocky Mountain Race Week 2.0 to his schedule, before wrapping up his season with Death Week.
“I think it’ll be a sizable challenge,” said Rajveer of Death Week. “I’m hoping for a top twenty-five spot. I think it will come down to not just the quickest car, but the ones that can survive a whole new set of conditions.”
“I think there will be a whole lot of awesome things to experience as well,” Rajveer said of Death Week. “The Pacific Coast Highway, Death Valley, and the Grand Canyon just to name a few. It will be a 2-for-1 with the awesome drives, and we get to race too.”
Written by Derek Putnam. Photos courtesy of Sick the Magazine and Rajveer Ahuja.
If you have thoughts / feedback / ideas, please e-mail us at derek@sickthemagazine.com