It was a "push start" situation that was common enough that NHRA banned the procedure . The push car would speed up to 60 or so and the dragster driver would pop the clutch and hit the ignition starting the engine. "IF" the procedure wasn't perfect , the dragster wouldn't fire , drag the rear tires and the push car wold jump on top of the dragster. OBVIOUSLY in a front engine car , the driver could seriously be injured despite being under a roll bar.
Seeing this reminded me of a long ago similar incident that I was involved in.
In 1972, I was a friend's "crew chief" on a two man race crew (him and I). He had just purchased what we then called a "rail dragster". He had been campaigning a big block Camaro in the Super Stock class with some success, to the point that he was runner up class eliminator at the 1970 US Nationals in Indianapolis, eliminated by the notable Poole/Elliott "Border Bandit" 68 CJ Mustang (The red fastback with the black/white stripes across the back).
He wanted to try running in Competition Eliminator, so the Camaro was sold in order to buy a dragster. A suitable front engine style chassis was found, and he proceeded to have an engine built. We were going to run in C/dragser class, with a Hilborn injected small block Chevy connected to a clutchflite trans.
The shop that built the engine was owned by two partners who campaigned a Hemi Powered B/dragster and they coached us on the ins and outs of running in Competition Eliminator. In a burst of youthful hubris, our first event with the car was the '72 US Nationals on Labor Day weekend in Indianapolis.
We arrived and I recall being set up in the pits nearby to Gary Beck, who would eventually win Top Fuel eliminator at the event, his first major victory in a long and successful career. As mentioned, in those days these cars were not self starting. The NHRA had a roller starter installed in the hot pits. It functioned like a reverse dyno so cars could be started for tuning. But once in the lanes for qualifying or eliminations, a push vehicle was required.
Part of the coaching from our machine shop mentors involved this procedure. They welded a vertical "T" bar to the back of the dragster and I was to drive the push vehicle, a '70 Chevy Kingwood wagon. They instructed my friend, who was driving the dragster, to be sure to quickly accelerate away from the push vehicle once the race car fired.
So our first experience with this was to occur during qualifying at a National Event. Things began uneventfully enough. We stayed in alignment and the car started. But my friend neglected to pull away and after an initial shot forward, went down to a slow roll. Slow enough that I was unable to stop the 4000 pound wagon behind him.
I gave that T bar one very good whack, which propelled the dragster forward. Fortunately, that was our only contact, as he quickly accelerated after that, with no damage done other than to our egos.
So you might say we "burst" onto the scene. We didn't qualify that day, but did go on to run that car for a couple of years and although not particularly successful, we did have a lot of fun and I got a lot of experience. And I never whacked the car again during a start.