Going back to the minivan thing... no, it's a stock '96 Grand Caravan SE, and of course it doesn't have NOS and all that. Dude, I'm not pulling a VX King on ya. :-)
I've not driven her van much therefore I've not been next to many ricers in it, but yes, the ricer folks I have been next to in it would have had trouble racing the van, almost without exception. They were showing off and flooring it and getting nothing much for it. I can often pass them in the van without having to even try very hard, and I think that van only pushes about 160 horses, 3.3-liter V6. Feels better than that, though.
Granted, they probably were not real modded out, just a sticker or two and a gaudy exhaust, so no real big performance enhancements. Probably ragged out the poor things with how they drive 'em too. But heck yeah, the minivan can take some of 'em, and this van has 200,000 miles on her and wasn't always taken care of like it should've been. And some of today's Caravans have a lot more oomph under the hood than that. Some of the new ones have 3.8-liter engines with 215hp, 245 lbs. torque. And I bet some minivans out there have better.
That said, I do more driving than most people and I haven't run across many that impressed me no matter what I was driving at the time, which is more often than not a Chevrolet Astro cargo van. I've even handled ricers in that with a 1,000+ lb. load in the back, maybe up to 1,500 lbs. Granted, it has a 190hp, 4.3-liter V6, and it is stripped down in the back for cargo.
This is all just my personal experience, though, but my experience around here says that if it's a car like that, odds are I can beat it with whatever I'm in. Seriously, I see that and I am generally LESS intimidated and more prone to race it because I'm conditioned to think they're easy pickings and I kinda like showing 'em up. Maybe our ricers here just plain suck or can't drive worth a damn? I don't know, but I'm not lying to ya. All I can say is that for me, the fast ricers are few and far between.
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