TEXAS BBQ

Like your hypercars a bit... hairier? Hennessey's 1,817bhp, 300mph+ Venom F5 is the one we've all been waiting for. Get ready to grill some tyres and fry your brain

- JACK RIX

You join me sweating like a brisket in the Texas sunshine, despite the aircon's best efforts. A quarter mile of wobbly heat hazed tarmac stretches out in front of me, behind an idling V8 burbles away like a T-Rex puffing on a pack of BSH. The whole car rocks back and forth on its springs as I stare, brow furrowed, at the mannetino-style toggle in front of me. In the distance, the Venom F5's entire development team waits patiently, wondering whether I've fallen asleep or had a coronary.

For every extreme pursuit - be it big air snowboarding, bullfighting, aerobatic piloting or, as it turns out, driving a lightly disguised dragster with 1,817bhp - there's a 'hold my beer' moment. An unavoidable plank walk into the unknown. Your first solo loop the loop, first step into a ring patrolled by an angry cow, or going full send into the space between land and sky - you know what to do, but you can't be sure what's going to happen. It's here you find me, considering my next move, because in the hunt for the purest first encounter possible I haven't driven the F5 at all until now and my mind is doing its best to paralyse me. There are stories of less potent Hennessey creations doing unexpected things on this very strip - unwanted wheelspin in fourth gear at 140mph, for example - hence the gnawing anxiety.