In drag racing, there are two basic forms of wheelstands: those that are controlled, and those that are not. Now, there’s probably little need to explain the difference, but the best way to think of it is that a controlled wheelstand is more along the lines of what you’d expect from a dialed-in Stocker or Super Stocker. They bring the wheels up the same way pass after pass, and they go straight far more often than they don’t. The driver is in control, because he or she is acutely aware of what to expect and how the car is going to react.

Then, there’s what you commonly find from our small-tire doorslammer friends. With a couple thousand horsepower on tap, little to no downforce, and often no wheelie bars per the class rules, you can never be quite sure what’s about to happen. It could cruise along like a worm-burning golf shot, or it could blow over at the finish line. It’s a crapshoot, and you’d better be ready for anything.

Of course, the latter is always more butt-puckering for the driver and exhilarating for the fan, but out-of-control wheelstands can (and regularly do) become rather destructive.

Rarely, however, do you see the beautiful combination of control and exhilaration in a wheelstand, but the driver of the Ford Pinto shown here pulled it off with pure perfection. Racing at South Dakota’s Thunder Valley Dragway, this Pinto carries the front wheels out beyond the 330-foot mark — much, much further than your typical wheels-up launch by a bracket-style car — and does it with almost effortless precision. The car completes a perfect arc through the air, aiming for the sky, momentarily riding out with the wheels hung high for the cameras as if frozen there, and softly returning back to earth. And the entire time, the driver appears to be in complete control, knowing the car isn’t going over, nor will it go left or right. And if he wasn’t in complete control or had his reservations, he sure sold it well.

Of course, the best part of it all is that we get to ride along on the quarter panel and witness it from an incredible perspective.