Brad Edwards, the first man to ever traverse an eighth of a mile in under four seconds on drag radials, enjoyed a banner weekend at Donald Long’s just-completed No Mercy 8 in South Georgia, piloting his twin-turbocharged 1997 Mustang to a career-best 3.85 while eclipsing the 200 mph mark for the first time. For Edwards, the performance has been a long time coming after spending the last couple of seasons battling a range of issues with the car that have plagued his efforts to remain at the top of the Radial vs The World heap, which he indeed was with his 3.99-second lick in Huntsville, Alabama in November 2014.

Edwards’ 3.856-second lap at the South Georgia Motorsports Park this past weekend earned him a host of honors he and tuner Peter Harrell certainly take pride in: he is now the world’s quickest true stock suspension 315 drag radial car, and also the quickest with a cast head big-block Chevrolet. Edwards uses a Holley EFI system in the car, which works in tandem with a Davis Technologies Profiler to navigate the 660. Harrell, who mans the keyboard on Edwards’ ride and also operates Harrell Engine & Dyno, took some time this week to point out the attributes of the car that make such numbers so unlikely on paper but oh-so real.

“In this business I have learned a few things over the years, and one of these is that ‘if you don’t toot your own horn nobody will do it for you.’ So, here goes.

Brad Edwards car just went 3.85 at over 200 mph repeatedly without so much as squeezing a drop of oil on track. So what you say? Ok hold on a second. This means the following things:

1. This is the quickest pass of any stock suspended vehicle in the world.

2. This is the quickest and fastest radial pass of any cast headed big block Chevrolet anywhere. People think I’m joking when I tell them I pulled Brad’s heads out of a dumpster. I’m not. I really did that. I pulled these heads out of a dumpster, made ridiculous repairs, ported them ENTIRELY by hand, and then bolted them on his motor. Fact.

3. These things really were achieved on an almost nonexistent racing budget when compared to other competitors. You can laugh about it all you want, but it’s the damn truth. I have receipts. Nothing wrong with spending money to go fast, but that is NOT how this was achieved.

4. This was achieved with the absolute ugliest front end of a race car in the history of drag racing. (they tell me it’s ten pounds lighter or something — I’ll take the ten pounds but whatever).

5. There are innovations that money can’t buy from one end of this race car to the other. I will discuss none of them here. Maybe one day.

6. Brad’s car still has a quarterstick shifter. Not kidding.