When Hot Rod Magazine calls their headlining Drag Week class “Unlimited”, they’re not kidding, and with a proliferation of purpose-built, carbon fiber and fiberglass-bodied street legal race cars coming out to play, the class has became a virtual arms race to see who can build the lightest and most powerful machine possible while still retaining some reliability.

And if you thought the 2013 and 2014 editions of Drag Week were mind-boggling, the next go-round just might put everyone’s jaws on the floor.

Tom Bailey, the champion of Drag Week a year ago when drove his composite-bodied 1969 Chevrolet Camaro to victory with a record average elapsed time of 6.83 after laying down an all-time best 6.70 earlier in the event, has laid down the gauntlet, proclaiming last week via social media that his intentions with the next incarnation of his “Sick Seconds” Camaro is 5.50-second quarter-mile times and 300 miles per hour in the standing mile — all while still capable of completing the hundreds of highway miles of Drag Week.

Bailey hasn’t let the cat out of the bag regarding his plans just yet, but has already teased a photo of a closed crate and has promised more to come in the next few weeks. In other words, he’s dead serious.

To date, just three doorslammers on the planet have been 5.50’s or quicker in the quarter-mile — one twin-turbo car and two with screw blowers — so that fact alone makes Bailey’s goal quite lofty, but a lot of folks also thought a 6.70 in Drag Week trim was ‘out there’ as well. And if fives don’t happen next year, they certainly will in the coming years.

There’s no question that Bailey’s new venture is driven by the arrival of five-time Drag Week champion Larry Larson’s state-of-the-art new Chevrolet S-10 pickup that debuted to much fanfare at Drag Week this year. Although Larson didn’t win, he did click off an unreal 6.16 after the conclusion of competition, thus forcing the hand of everyone else in the category to step up and leave the 6.70’s and 80’s in their dust — or perhaps eve the sixes entirely — if they expect to win next year.

What do you think? Can 5.50’s from a street-driven car be done on Drag Week? Is it only a matter of time, regardless?