The international battle amongst the world’s quickest and fastest imports to reach the five-second zone has certainly been getting real over the last couple of years, but with a pass now in the books a mere three-thousandths of a second from the magical mark, it’s more real than ever, leaving the history books little more than an eyelash from being completely re-written.

The country of Bahrain, with its arid climate, has allowed the formidable EKanoo Racing team to get a leg up on their peers around the world, as they’ve continued to flog their world-beating 10.5W-tire Toyota Supra throughout the winter months (where in their native land, temperatures hover in the 70s) on their march into the fives.

With the assistance of United States-based tuners Shane Tecklenburg and Josh Ledford and the driving prowess of American Gary White, the team owned by Ebrahim Kanoo has been leading the pack for the better part of two years, since snatching the record with a 6.23-second blast back in the spring of 2013. With a host of others right at their heels and at times even trading jabs in the record department, the EKanoo squad has whittled away another two-plus tenths, most recently uncorking a 6.05-second, 240 mile per hour hit in October.

But during the latest round of the Bahrain Drag Racing Club over the weekend, White and the gang ripped off the quickest import-powered pass in history and left themselves just shy of shattering the five-second barrier, with a 6.003-second pass at over 244 miles per hour. That, with a 3/4 chassis car on 33 x 10.5W slicks, powered not by a big block V8, but by a six-cylinder Toyota 2JZ mill.

With Tecklenburg, Ledford, Eric Luzinksi, and Haider Mohd all pounding away on the Supra, EKanoo Racing appears to be in the catbird seat in the race to the fives. That is, if they haven’t put a pep in the step of their fellow challengers to get out and do the same at all costs before the barrier they’ve all been chasing for more than a decade — and perhaps the final great barrier in import racing — is over and done.