OUR VERSION OF A 2024 AUTOMOTIVE AWARDS SHOW (SOMETIMES HUMOROUS, SOMETIMES NOT).

America's fastest senior citizen made the save of the year when his Funny Car's engine exploded at Virginia Motorsports Park.

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WINNER: JOHN FORCE

That kind of thing is prone to happen when your vehicle packs a 496-cubic-inch V-8 that burns nitromethane and makes more than 11,000 horsepower-for as long as it holds together. Now, any incident involving the phrase "engine exploded" is going to present a certain set of challenges, especially when the action unfolds at over 300 mph, as it did during Force's race against Terry Haddock. With flames licking up in front of his face, Force, 75, calmly countersteered and kept his car pointed straight as it pinballed off the walls. Nonetheless, there was a violent crash, and he spent the following months recovering, eventually rejoining his team as a spectator at the Nationals in Vegas. If that run this past June turns out to be Force's last race, it ended the way you'd expect―he won.

LOSER: THE FORD PROBE I GHIA THAT BURNED AFTER PEBBLE BEACH

When we attend Pebble Beach or Amelia Island, or any local show, we tend to gawk at the cars without really considering how they got there. But the reality is that any car show, no matter how exalted, involves risk-cars must leave their climate-controlled garages and head out into the chaotic world, and sometimes that journey is fatal. Such was the case with the 1979 Ford Probe I Ghia concept that burned to the ground inside its trailer. The vehicle was on its way home from the Pebble Beach concours after its glamorous appearance with the featured wedge cars. The car's owner, the Scott Grundfor Company, specializes in restorations, so maybe there's hope, but this is a reminder that no matter how coddled your car is, accidents happen.

Totaled, though, is a state of mind.

WINNER: WEIRD ENGINES

Internal combustion might seem like an evolutionary dead end when we've got electric sedans running around with four-figure horsepower, but the world's tinkerers are still dreaming up new approaches to explosion-based propulsion.