Taylor said he knew as soon as he left the starting line that he was on a good pass, but after drifting close to the right guardwall and actually shutting down a little early he was shocked to see 3.60 flash across his scoreboard.

“I actually thought it said 3.68, which was still pretty good because it would’ve backed up (within the required one percent) my earlier 3.65 for the record, but then my eyes focused a little better and I could see that zero on the end,” Taylor said. “That was sweet!”

Frankie Taylor couldn’t have much more impressive in the Pro Extreme semi-finals, but he didn’t plan on being topped by Joshua Hernandez.

In the fastest side-by-side race in ADRL history, the two veteran Texas racers put on a duel for the ages.

Hernandez had his best run of the weekend, beginning with a .025 light and edging out Taylor and advancing to the final against KH Al-Thani with a 3.64-seconds run. Taylor left with a .027 reaction and finished in 3.65 seconds, but remarkably it wasn’t quite enough to beat Hernandez.

Still, Taylor wasn’t completely distraught at missing a final-round appearance.

“Everything was good, but it’s just one of those things,” Taylor said. “How can you get mad when you win 95 percent of races having a run like that? You can’t be disappointed.”

Taylor assuredly was not, leaving with plenty of momentum despite no championship.

He set a new ADRL time record of 3.60 seconds on Friday and remained consistent the rest of the weekend.

“We had a good weekend and had a lot of fun,” Taylor said. “Nobody had more fun than us this weekend.”