Yes, I had him by 2-3 cars (and was probably moving ~10 mph faster) through the traps. The crowd could tell because of the win light.

Even when they spot cars out, somebody stands at the line in the beams to activate the timers for the spotted out car. The timelip ET will be off, but it allows the finish line timing lights to still determine the winner (which prevents all the BS arguing, refusing to pay BS that would occur if a really close race had to be evaluated visually).