The 5-Hour Energy Shot® continues to be one of the more popular energy drinks on the market. The maker claims that it improves work and/or exercise performance. PURPOSE: To determine if ingesting one 5-Hour Energy Shot® compared to a placebo causes measurable improvement in performance related to physiological variables during a simulated driving task (SDT). METHODS: Nineteen (11 males, 8 females), college-aged (21.8 + 1.55 yrs; 1.7 + 0.11 m in ht; 72.9 + 13.83 kg in wt), volunteers participated in a double-blind, cross-over, placebo-based study. The participants were tested prior to and then at 5 consecutive 1-hour intervals after ingesting either a randomly assigned non-caffeinated placebo (PL) (59 ml; 5 kcals) or the 5-Hour Energy Shot® (5HES) (59 ml; 4 kcals). The SDT was a solo-timed road race (Forza Horizon game) on an Xbox 360 gaming system. During each of the 6 data collection trials, heart rate (HR), systolic blood pressure (SBP), diastolic blood pressure (DBP), ear temperature (ETemp), skin temperature (STemp), drive time (DT), and number of crashes (#C) were recorded. Subjects were also evaluated for alertness and drink effectiveness at each of same time points. A 2-way repeated measures ANOVA was utilized to determine differences between the PL and the 5-HES treatments across the six test periods of the driving task. Significance was established at p < 0.05. summary of RESULTS: There was no statistically significant difference between PL and 5-HES across the six time periods relative to HR, SBP, DBP, ETemp, or #C driving tasks. However, the 5-HES group had a significantly lower STemp than the PL group at each time interval; with a 5-hour post-ingestion STemp of 89.55 + 2.30^oF in the 5-HES group compared to 90.27 + 1.96^oF in the PL group. The 5-HES group had a faster DT compared to the PL group at each of the time intervals; with a 5-hour post-ingestion DT of 197.47 + 50.39 sec in the 5-HES group compared to 201.09 + 52.38 sec in the PL group. CONCLUSIONS: When compared to a placebo, 5- Hour Energy Shot® did significantly improve driving time, along with a concomitant reduced skin temperature in college-aged participants during a simulated driving task.