I wasn't in a car...
It was 1958 or '59... can't recall the year,exactly, but at the Carlisle (Arkansas) drag strip (a WW II bomber emergency landing strip), we had no win/lose photocell system...
What we had was a guy standing on a wooden, folding chair, in the middle of the drag strip at the finish line, with a flag.... He would raise it and tip the flag toward the winning lane as the cars went by.
Yours truly thought that would be a great place to watch the race from, so, one day I volunteered to be the "JUDGE."
The stockers weren't bad.... running 75-90mph.... not too bad at all.... then came...
Raymond Godman's Memphis-based "Boll Weevil" AA/MR; nothing but a blown Hemi dragster with a T-bucket roadster body mounted to the back half... and ran something like 150+ at that time...
One trip through the traps with his Boll Weevil on one side of me and a different 150mph car on the other, and I was ready to watch the races from a different perspective. I think I told them I was sick... not too far from the truth.
To this day, sometimes I still hear that 6:71/Hilborn 4-port coming at me at warp speed.... and me with nowhere to go...
Nobody ever accused me of being smart.
Bill