There was a guy around here that had a van that looked identical to that that ran 12.5's, and our track is at 5000 feet above sea level. It had no stickers, no vanity plates, crappy paint, stock wheels, and a tore up interior. Absolutely nothing to elude to how much power he was making.
I was at the track the first time he ran it during friday night street legals. It was in 1996 before the import trend started, and turbo cars (or vans) and 4 cylinder cars at the track were few and far between. For his first qualifying run he lined up against a 80's Iroc Z (i knew the guy, he had a Vortech and rebuilt 350 TPI out of a Corvette). Everyone in the stands was laughing and pointing at the van, nobody had ever seen it run. They got the green, by the 1/8 mile mark the van had him by about a couple car lengths, the announcer started freaking out, and at the end of the run he had beat the Iroc by 4 or 5 tenths. Everyone in the stands was going crazy, and the driver of the van was very popular in the pits and staging lanes the rest of the night. Everytime he lined up he got a standing ovation from the crowd and the announcer would start saying things like, "I hope the driver of this Nova is comfortable losing to a mini van." When he finally lost in like the 4th or 5th round of eliminations to a 86 Procharged/Intercooled 351W Coupe Mustang, everyone booed and about 1/3 of the crowd just got up and left, like the van was the only reason they had stayed that late.