The team made a late decision to change from their new Murf McKinney-built C5 Corvette back to the '57 Chevy Bel Air they’ve been running for a couple of years.  That  meant the team was removing parts, replacing parts, and retrofitting parts from the ‘Vette to work on the '57. In addition, they had switched over to an automatic transmission prior to the West Palm Beach race, so it meant huge changes in a short amount of time. And, on top of it all, add the strain of team owner Sheikh Abdulla bin Hamad Al Khalifa, second son of the King of Bahrain, contending with political situations in his country.

With veteran Rick Hickman tuning, Hernandez qualified 12th and then went .008 red and wasted an impressive 3.764 against Jason Hamstra (driving an Andy McCoy race car) who had a.062  light and a  3.691 ET.

The Pro Nitrous class was dominated by Al-Anabi teams with the most dominant of the crew being Khalid Al-Balooshi, who made the quickest and fastest nitrous Pro Mod eighth-mile laps in history including a historic 200-plus mph effort. Al-Balooshi kicked off the first round of eliminations in fine fashion, driving his Speedtech Camaro to a blistering 3.786 at 200.53 mph on a solo run.

That clocking backed up his Friday qualifying lap of 200.38 mph - the first 200-mph PN run in history.  The 3.786 ET became the world E.T. record after teammate Mahana Al-Naemi couldn't back up his earlier 3.776, giving Balooshi both ends of the record but leaving Naemi as the quickest driver in nitrous racing history.

"He's comfortable in the race car and confident in the team," crew chief Brandon Switzer said.

Other Pro Nitrous semifinalists included Bob Rahaim, who made his first semifinal appearance in the ADRL, Fredy Scriba and veteran Steve Vick.

Only ten cars were there for the Extreme 10.5 class but they were ten of the best. The finalist were Chuck Ulsch and Dan Millen.