Sleepers are a wonderful thing in drag race. Street Outlaws’ Farm Truck is maybe the best-known and there are certainly plenty of other greats like the 700-horsepower Toyota Camry that looks like it’s just been obliviously blocking the left lane for 13 miles. But very few sleepers, if any, have a true sleeper cab perched atop them. Fewer still, we reckon, play a chiming version of “Turkey in the Straw” while staging. But dang us if the Ice Cream Drag Van that frequents Irwindale Speedway and Auto Club Speedway might not top all of them. The 1975 Dodge Tradesman 300 carries the most 1970’s “milk carton” paint scheme ever and aside from drag slicks on the rear, it looks otherwise like it could park down by the river overnight and then creep out the parents in any suburban neighborhood by day.

But it is a sleeper, after all, and with a mildly build Dodge 360, a trip-over-in-the-junkyard Torqueflite 727, and 4:10 gears, the Ice Cream Drag Van has toppled the occasional Mustangs, Novas, and more at Irwindale’s ⅛-mile over the last five years or so. Recently added nitrous has bumped the Van’s ET down to as low as 8.601, according to the van’s Facebook page, and after checking with some announcer guy, that would theoretically put this van somewhere around 13 seconds in the quarter mile. That may not sound like much, but when it’s hauling nearly three tons of classic Detroit steel and a few pounds of frozen treats, we’re mighty impressed.