If Top Gun taught us anything, aside from the fact that shirtless beefcake volleyball is totally fine, it’s that there’s an inherent human need to feel speed. Or, the need to feel the need for speed. Or whatever. Anyway, people keep wanting to go faster, and it’s always exciting when they do. On Valentine’s Day (February 14th, don’t ya know), the super sleek Hennessey Venom GT reached a top speed of 270.49 MPH, making it the fastest 2-seat sports car in the world.

The test was conducted on a 3.2 mile stretch of runway at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and was driven and engineered by professional driver Brian Smith, who accelerated for 2.7 miles and then used the rest of the length to slow down, because damn. A Hennessey Venom GT has a whopping 1,244 horsepower, which is incredibly impractical for trying to recreate using actual horses. It makes my now-defunct 350-horsepower Chevy Nova look like a snail with an artificial hip.

You can watch the entire run in the 4.5 minute video below, which begins with a snippet of President Kennedy’s historic speech from 1962. Also, you can see in the video that Smith gets to 80 MPH before shifting into second gear. Holy, and if I may, crap.

HT: Laughing Squid