"...It's just one of the many ways to beat yourself..."
Yeah, there are lots of different ways. I built an E/SA '68 Firebird for my girlfriend(now wife). She had already won several races, at local tracks. Then one night, she made what appeared to be a good pass. Looked like she cut her usual good light. It launched good & sounded good. So I was very surprised when I saw that she had lost.
I was real curious to know what had happened. When she got back, she sheepishly admitted that she had left the parking brake partially down, and apologized for it.
We had been pushing it thru the staging lanes, to keep it cool. So, to keep it from rolling, when we weren't pushing, she would mash the parking brake, just enuff to prevent any rolling. But when she got all strapped in, she forgot to release the brake. Since it was applied so lightly, she didn't notice the drag. Did the burnout & staged just fine. But, it was dragging enuff to slow it down just a little, all the way down the track. It was a heads-up run with a car she'd beat several times that year. I reckin he was as surprised as anybody, when he won.
We've had some laughs about that incident thru the years. And, after that, before she went to make a run, I asked her if she'd released it, probably hundreds of times. Many of those times, I knew she'd already released it, but asked anyhow, just for fun.
