There are a number of embarrassing things one can experience at the drag strip that can leave your head hanging in shame — dropping a driveshaft or axle on the starting line, oiling the track,  losing a breakout dial-in race to a guy that broke on the starting line, for example. But it doesn’t get any worse than taking out the christmas tree. Beyond the obvious fact that it’s the christmas tree and its right there in front of everyone on the starting line, it also leaves you in the potentially precarious situation — if the track doesn’t have a backup tree — of being “that guy” that ended the party early for everyone.

One grudge racer at the Hub City Dragway in Mississippi actually managed to check off two of the above-mentioned occurrences, when the lug nuts on his left rear wheel sheared off on his Monte Carlo right at the hit, sending him sliding hopelessly into the christmas tree. As you can see, the hit didn’t completely saw the tree down and destroy it like other such incidents we’ve seen, but left if leaning like a stop sign that’s been run over on a snowy Midwest day.

All things considered, the damage was relatively minimal to the nitrous-fed Monte, as it dinged up the drivers side fenders forward of the wheel opening, and pushed in the nose — nothing a good body man can’t fix. But the embarrassment of hitting the christmas tree? That one leaves a little bit of a store spot.