Despite fighting weather almost all weekend and a complete rainout on Saturday that postponed the final day of racing until Sunday, the race was run to completion. More than 90 car and motorcycle racers made the trip to the South Florida track to race in five classes for cars and one for motorcycles. The posted cash purse exceeded $100,000.

The headliner class for the event was the Pro Mod class. Although the class ran on an eighth-mile track instead of the quarter, the rules for the class at the IHRA sanctioned track were strictly those of the NHRA’s Pro Mod Get Screened American series, so there were no screw superchargers allowed. The supercharged cars raced under the reduced supercharger overdrive that NHRA mandated for the 2011 season.

Despite a corrected track altitude of just 700 feet above sea level, cool conditions and the great traction of the PBIR track offers the supercharged and turbocharged cars weren’t performing up to the Pro Mod performance standards of 2010. 

Three of the top five qualifiers, including pole sitter Rickie Jones, used nitrous oxide-injected engines. The best the supercharged/turbocharger racers could manage was the number three qualifying spot held by the Al Billes-tuned supercharged entry of Mike Knowles. Veteran Ed Hoover joined Knowles as the only non-nitrous cars qualifying in the 3.80 range.

Jones’s massive, nitrous-gulping, Reher-Morrison motor and his ’68 Camaro powered to his first professional pole with a 3.845 ET just .001 quicker that teammate Shannon Jenkins.

The quickest turbo car honors went to Louisiana racer Alex Viscardi’s ’67 Shelby Mustang who ran a 3.957 to qualify ninth. NHRA speed record holder and turbo guru Brad Personett couldn’t break into the three-second zone, managing a best of 4.012. His new boss, Roger Burgess, also in a new turbocharged, Alan Johnson-powered ‘Vette, ran a best of 4.021/200.17. It wasn’t quick enough to make the quick 16 but he did get into the field on Sunday as the first alternate when East Coast racer Vinnie Budano couldn’t hang around after the Saturday rainout.