Bahrain’s EKanoo Racing, an international drag racing powerhouse with countless records to its credit, has established yet another set of benchmarks for the rest of the world to chase today, as driver Khalid Mohamed and tuner Shane Tecklenburg propelled the team’s Lexus RCF to the quickest and fastest full-bodied doorslammer run in history at 5.379-seconds at 278.79 mph at the Bahrain International Circuit.

The EKanoo Lexus is powered by a 522 cubic-inch ProLine Racing Hemi with 94mm Gen 3 Precision turbos and Billet Atomizer injectors, and is managed by a MoTec M150 engine management system overseen by Tecklenburg, with assistance from co-crew chiefs Jamie Miller of the famed Red Hat Mafia and Mikey Rees of Reeslyn Innovations. The car had been as quick as 5.43-seconds previously, making it the then-second quickest doorslammer on the planet. Now it stands alone.

Mohamed clocked a .959-second 60-foot and a 3.615 at 218.51 mph to the eighth-mile on the record-breaking lap.

“Teamwork makes the dream work! Honestly I had a goal to be the first to the 5.30s in the quarter and we achieved that. My team is unbelievable and I thank them from the bottom of my heart for putting my vision at the focus of their efforts and turning it into reality,” noted team owner Ebrahim Kanoo.

“We are happy to be the first to run a Pro Boost turbo car in the 3.50’s to the eighth-mile and 5.30’s in the quarter — sort of has a nice ring to it,” added Tecklenburg, one of the world’s premier turbo tuners. “And now that we have the 5.37 we can focus on getting this car to perform at its proper potential in the eighth.”

Teamwork makes the dream work! Honestly I had a goal to be the first to the 5.30s in the quarter and we achieved that. – Ebrahim Kanoo

For the EKanoo camp, the 5.30 and 280 mph barriers, while certainly attractive, were both benchmarks that carried some concern in regards to safety, leading to a collective hesitancy to run under power to the stripe.

“We can run quicker, but to be honest we’re afraid to press our luck in the quarter-mile too many times. So we made a decision if we run better than 3.64 today to the eighth, we would go quarter-mile on the next pass just once to see if we get it. We decided to do it today because it is testing and Khalid can read the scoreboard from the eighth so we told him if was better than 3.64, to leg it out.”

“We’re done with quarter, though. We’ll let someone else take the risk. I’d love to do it [the 280 mph mark], but realistically I think we should consider the safety aspect of it. If something really bad happens it’s not going to end well,” Tecklenburg continued.

The magical run wasn’t without its troubles, as Mohammed was forced to climb on the binders and flat-spotted the front tires, stopping just short of the sand trap at the end of the Bahrain strip.

I’d love to do it [the 280 mph mark], but realistically I think we should consider the safety aspect of it. If something really bad happens it’s not going to end well. – Shane Tecklenburg

Following their historic, extracurricular run, the EKanoo camp will now shift its focus back to qualifying tomorrow for the Bahrain Drag Racing Championship Series, which is conducted over the eighth-mile.

“We’re at about the limit unless we go to lock-up converter but then we would have to swap parts and we are here to race eighth-mile, Tecklenburg notes. “The best cars in the world, with multi-championship winning crew chiefs are running here against us. We want to win and we can’t afford to give up opportunities to learn while trying some “special” quarter-mile-only setup.”