After more than four years in production vehicles, Ford’s EcoBoost line of turbocharged engines is finally heading to the racetrack. The 3.5 liter EcoBoost engine, built by Roush-Yates, will compete with cars sporting much bigger engines. But Ford isn’t worried in the least, even setting out to break some records at Daytona International Speedway to prove just how capable this smaller engine really is.

Breaking records is exactly what they did. Ford put Colin Braun behind the wheel, and with 3.5 liters of V6 fury propelling him forward, Braun set a new lap average speed record of more than 222 mph.

That is faster than any man has ever lapped Daytona, a race track with a long and storied history. In fact, Braun shattered the lap record of around 210 mph, set by Bill Elliott in 1987 during a NASCAR qualifying lap. That extra 12 mph cushion should keep Ford, Braun, and the EcoBoost at the top of the pack for years to come.

The EcoBoost Daytona Prototype will make its racing debut next year in the newly-formed United SportsCar League, a combining of the American Le mans Series and Grand-Am. Most of the other Daytona Prototypes will be sporting V8 engines displacing between 3.9 and 5.0 liters, so the EcoBoost V6 has its work cut out for it. But after watching this video, we think the other drivers are the ones that should be worried.

Be sure to watch the video and hear the sweet wail of that engine, and to find out what went into building a 3.5 liter that can achieve this kind of performance, check out a recent story on the engine as well.