We stopped for a few seconds, and when the other T-Rex passed by, Mr. De Larochelière gunned it and caught up. We were then both shooting down the quarter-mile stretch at about a 4-foot distance, which is disconcerting for me but perfectly normal for a T-Rex driver. The reflexes of this machine are so precise, so extreme, that you can run up close to each other without risking bumping your opponent like in a Nascar race. By the way, a stock T-Rex doesn't have a windshield, which you realize when you're following another one and its rear wheel spits gravel at you. If my visor wasn't closed, I'd probably have one eye left.

One rare beast that was sitting in the parking lot when we got at Sanair was something that was called the T-Rex T/R; a black, topless machine with--what's this? A V-Twin engine? You could hear the difference when it was buzzing around the track. As a regular T-Rex sings as it passes you by, the T/R emitted a low-pitch growl. When we stumbled upon Mr. Guy Bourassa, President of T-Rex Vehicles Inc., he explained to us that the T/R was a one-off recently created, powered by a French-built 138-hp, DOHC 8-valve 996cc Voxan V-Twin engine.

During the day, the various T-Rexes held their own on the track against such glorious exotics as Lamborghini Gallardos, a Porsche 911 GT3 and a 911 Turbo, a couple of Vipers including a very mean-sounding and blindingly fast supercharged SRT-10, a Caterham Super 7, a Lotus Elise and--oh my god!--a Lotus Exige. Although several of these beauties could thunder down the straightaway as quickly or even slightly quicker than the T-Rex, about only the Exige could come remotely close to it in the series of curves.

Like the movie "Gone in 60 seconds" (the remake) in which the Shelby GT500 is Memphis Raines' unicorn, the T-Rex is mine, a machine that I was supposed to drive and was denied from my hands once again. Oh well, maybe next spring, I'll drop by for visit at the factory and jump into a T-Rex while they're not looking.