Imagine sitting in a racecar behind an idling 2,100 horsepower engine. You floor the pedal and accelerate from a standing start to 100 mph in only one and a half seconds. Some might liken the feel to blasting off in a rocketship, but that's the sensation that Summit Racing's Fred Hahn experienced last week (week of June 5, 2000) as he drove the Summit Racing Pro Modified 1953 Corvette to set the world record for the quickest car on Earth.

Hahn and his highly modified Corvette set the new mark at an International Hot Rod Association drag race in Grand Bend, Ontario. He sped down a quarter mile drag strip in just 6.179 seconds to set the record for the quickest elapsed time. Coincidentally, he also won the race.

Just a month earlier at a previous IHRA drag race in Rockingham, N.C., Hahn set a world record for speed, traveling the quarter mile at 227.65 mph. He claims the elapsed time of 6.179 seconds makes his car the quickest "doorslammer," or stock-bodied car with operating doors, in the world.