The Texas-based Hennessey Performance Engineering team just released an amazing high-definition video of their Venom GT breaking an incredible speed record.

Image via Hennessey Performance Engineering

The Venom GT set a new world speed record for two-seat sports cars by reaching a top speed of 270.49 mph, by racing the high-performance car down the 3.2-mile Kennedy Space Center Space Shuttle landing runway in Cape Canaveral, Fla.

Image via Hennessey Performance Engineering

Image via Hennessey Performance Engineering

Brian Smith, director of Miller Motorsports Park just outside Tooele, Utah, drove the Venom GT to its record-setting speed. Racelogic, the world-renowned maker of VBox GPS data-acquisition systems, had a representative on hand to independently verify and document the Venom GT's highest recorded speed.

Image via Hennessey Performance Engineering

The blistering speed is the fastest recorded time for a two-seat sports car, but because the Venom GT uses a modified chassis and other components from the Lotus Exige — and since only 11 have been produced — the Guinness Book of Records has not recognized the Venom as "the fastest production car."

“The Venom GT attained a maximum speed of 270.49 mph as measured by our VBOX 3i GPS system,” said Racelogic engineer Joe Lachovsky, according to Hennessy's release.

The GPS data showed the Venom GT took just 10.1 seconds to accelerate from 260 to 270 mph. The historic run took 2.4 miles to achieve, allowing the Venom just eight-tenths of a mile to stop.

"Thankfully, its Brembo carbon-ceramic brakes were able to haul the car down from 270 mph well before the end of the runway’s 1,000-foot threshold," the Hennessey team said.

See the incredible footage here, with some inspirational narration from a former U.S. president:

(H/T: GTSpirit.com)

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