Drag Illustrated Issue 131, April 2018 | Page 24

Dirt EKANOO RACING K not properly, leaving Mohammed with a hand- ful of steering wheel and a foot full of the brake pedal, taking both front tires down to the wheels and performing his best drift impression to scrub speed before the sand trap. He was able to keep the car out of the kitty litter, but did have a slight scrub with the concrete retaining wall since he lost steering. After the 278.79-mph run down the quarter mile and only one parachute worth of stopping power, he was able to save the record- holding Lexus and himself from major damage. The EKanoo Racing Lexus RC-F relies upon a 521 ci Pro Line Racing-built HEMI powerplant with a set of Precision Turbo Gen III 94 mm turbochargers supplying the boost through the intake manifold to propel the chassis, fabricated in Bahrain at EKanoo Racing. Billet Atomizer Injectors flow the methanol through the engine into the cylinders for combustion and the cus- tom software MoTeC M150 Vehicle Management System controls each individual cylinder’s timing halid Mohammed put his safety gear, seat belts and HANS Device on, just as if it was any other pass. EKanoo Racing team principal Ebra- him Kanoo stood a longside his Lexus RC-F mas- terpiece, just as if it was any other pass. In just 5.379 seconds, it was more than just any other run down the 1,320 feet of concrete at the Bahrain International Circuit (BIC). While the EKanoo team was preparing for another Bahrain Drag Racing Championship (BDRC) event, the Pro Boost Lexus was making some strong runs to the eighth mile during test- ing. But as the test session came to a close, the team made the decision to let Mohammed string it out the backdoor to go after the ever-elusive 5.3-second barrier and the 280-mph mark for a doorslammer. The EKanoo Lexus’s previous best was a 5.437 elapsed time and was in the running for the next great barrier in doorslammer racing. On February 28, 2018, the 5.3-second barrier was knocked down by Mohammed, Kanoo, Haider Mohammed, Shane Tecklenburg, Jamie Miller, Mikey Rees and the entire EKanoo team with an astounding time slip that boasted a .959 60-foot time and stopped the eighth-mile timers in just 3.615 seconds. It rocketed through the back half of the racetrack in just 1.764 seconds to record the quickest and fastest pass for a doorslammer in the history of drag racing, 5.379 at 278.79 miles per hour. Mohammed lifted off the loud pedal and as the front end came back to the pavement, a shower of sparks came from underneath the car as the titanium chassis savers did their job, but at the same moment, the passenger-side door skin ripped free of the Lexus RC-F body. As this all happened, Mohammed pulled the parachutes, but only one deployed and even then, 24 | D r a g I l l u s t r a t e d | DragIllustrated.com Issue 131