(6-12-2005) Joliet, IL - After earning top-qualifying honors and winning the first round of Pro Mod eliminations at the 8th Annual Carquest Auto Parts NHRA Nationals at Route 66 Raceway in Joliet, IL, freshman driver Joshua Hernandez and the Dr. Moon’s Rage team expected that they were off to a stellar weekend, hopefully turning in a repeat performance of their winning efforts in Houston earlier in the year. The weekend, however, did not turn out the way they had planned.

After winning decisively over Ron Muenks with a 6.254 second, 227.00 mile per hour pass compared to Muenks’ 6.533-second, 211.26 mile per hour effort in the first round of eliminations, Hernandez’ plan was still in tact -- that was until the post-run tech inspection identified a foreign substance in the car’s fuel, effectively nullifying the win and disqualifying Hernandez and the team from competing in the balance of the event.

“I feel like I was kicked in the gut,” Hernandez said.

“We had a really good run, and went to through the check procedures after we made the pass. They weighed the car and then did two tests on the fuel – a gravity test to be sure we were running alcohol, and a purity test to be sure there were no additives in the fuel. Everything went fine, just like it had all weekend, until the purity test, when they said there was a trace amount of some hydrocarbon in our fuel. It was enough to make us fail the test and get disqualified,” he said.

TLR/AMS series director, Kenny Nowling said, “I talked at length with Jim Collins of the NHRA Technical Department, and he said that Josh’s fuel was ‘dead fuel.’ He told me that the fuel actually would have made the car slow down – not add any speed or horsepower at all.

“Something must have contaminated their fuel – like brake cleaner, or gasoline or something. It definitely was one of those freak things – and extremely disappointing for all of the guys,” Nowling said.

Hernandez said, “None of the guys know what happened – we had two full jugs of fuel that were filled directly from a 55-gallon drum of methanol. When we tested the fuel later, we found that the drum was pure and one of the two jugs was fine – it was just the one jug that was contaminated, and that happened to the one we used to fill the car.

“But that was all it took,” he added.

Shaking his head, Hernandez and the team packed up the’57 Chevy Bel Air and made plans to replace the fouled lines and tank, preparing for their next race next weekend in Englishtown, New Jersey.

“It’ll take us a couple of days to shake this one off, because it really just took us all by surprise," Hernandez said. "It’s something that you definitely never think will happen, but, this year has been a season of firsts for me – and this is one I hope NEVER happens again.

“We’ll come back strong in Jersey and try to pick up right where we left off. Now I think we have something to prove. I know we can do it – but for now, we’ll just try to get past this,” Hernandez said.