New Prospect for Prospero – Multi-Time Drag and Drive Winner Reveals New Chevrolet Colorado Build!
A competitor with over a decade in drag and drive events, as well as street car style events, Rick Prospero has made his mark with a pair of cars in several events, starting at the 2009 edition of the Hot Rod Drag Week event.
Using a ’65 Chevy Nova station wagon, and then a ’90 Mazda RX-7, Rick has five drag and drive titles to his credit, including the inaugural Gear Vendors Overdrive Sick Week title in 2022. Rick is one of a couple names that is on all three Sick Certified list for holding an 8-second, 7-second and 6-second average in a major drag and drive event.
Between his street car event outings, Rick has also dabbled in No-Time events and classes in the Mazda. And a few years ago, Rick mentioned he was going to be constructing a new car in the future that might take the place of the RX-7. Recently, Rick released some photos of the new build, and Rick gave Sick The Magazine the details.
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The new build, a 2005 Chevrolet Colorado, came from the John Dougherty (a.k.a. ‘John Doc’) stable. And although the car was about 75-percent done, Rick decided to re-do a decent amount of the work to a different standard, converting it to a double frame rail style chassis, changing the engine and transmission location, and building a revamped firewall. The finished product is SFI-certified to a six-second threshold.
To power the new build, the Colorado got the driveline from the RX-7, including the twin-turbo big block and Turbo 400 transmission. Nearly complete, the truck sheds a decent amount of weight from the RX-7 platform, although Rick wouldn’t give us an exact number.
As before, son Cole will provide the tuning and track assistance for Rick, and the truck is slated to hit the track in the next couple months. The plan is to focus in No-Time classes and events in the southeast area for the first year of running the Colorado, but Rick hasn’t ruled out a possible drag and drive appearance in the future.
Written by Derek Putnam. Photos courtesy of Sick the Magazine, 1320 Video and Rick Prospero.
If you have thoughts / feedback / ideas, please e-mail us at derek@sickthemagazine.com