It has taken almost four years since the first EcoBoost engine launched in a production car, but Ford has finally seen fit to take their new engine line to the race track. To show just how serious a racing machine the EcoBoost can be, Ford outfitted this Daytona Prototype track racer with a Roush-Yates tuned 3.5 liter EcoBoost engine, and then took it to its namesake track in Daytona, Florida to set a new lap record. We detailed the engine in a story last week, and even showed it on the dyno.

And set a record they did, shattering a 26-year old single lap speed record of 210.364 mph set by NASCAR driver Bill Elliott back in 1987 during a NASCAR qualifying lap. Ford didn’t just set a new record though, they gave themselves quite the record buffer, maxing out at 222.971 mph.

So despite competing in the newly-formed United SportsCar Championship against cars with much bigger engines and two extra pistons, Ford is sending a message with this record-setting run. We’re not here to fool around; we’re here to win. Colin Braun drove the Daytona Prototype for the Michael Shank Racing team, and didn’t just beat the lap record.

Braun also set two (pending) records with the FIA; one for the 10-kilometer distance (202.4 mph) and one for the 10-mile distance (210 mph), both records have stood even longer than Elliot’s 1987 record. Congratulations aside, the EcoBoost Daytona Prototype will make its debut next year in a very-competitive field of eager challengers, and record-setting run or not, the EcoBoost engine still has a lot to prove. This does however mark the first time in recent memory that real production based parts, the block and cylinder heads, have been used at this level of racing. Maybe the race on Sunday, sell on Monday mantra is about to make an apporpriate return.