In the 1970's, my next door neighbor had a medium sized rail dragster in his garage. He used to fire that thing up and shoot flames out the open door.
As a 17 yo kid, he let me "drive" it in the empty parking lot of the local grocery store on a weekend early one morning. I didn't get to open it up (for obvious reasons) but it was way cool. I kind of just "idled" it around. Too cool of an experience.
I was also a member of Ohio Street Machines with my 1965 Mustang back then and my brother ran his Duece coupe on the 1/4 mile track in Xenia a few times for amateur night. Those were the days.
With the Ohio Street Machine club, we had a weekend getaway where they served Genesee cream ale out of the keg for a quarter a cup. I was old enough to drink legally by then. And I got laid by my girlfriend in the back seat. I miss those days.