My senior year in high school, I ran a mile on the track that would host NCAA indoors the next weekend. I was leading the A heat with 400m to go, and was passed by a kid I'd raced often that fall. He was really cruising, but I had several gears left, so I covered and followed him for the next 200m. As we came in on the bell, I cruised past him, and he realized he'd charged early. He ended up fifth, and I got the win. He was less than happy about his gaffe.
Earlier that fall, I was disqualified twice, in two different races. The first meet of the season was a hokum-karum style race (two guys form a team, and take turns running 3x1 mile), and I was the lead guy for my pair. Toward the end of my third leg, I was leading the pack, and came out of the woods into a clearing toward the final exchange. There weren't any officials on the course, but there were tons of flags heading in several directions (since there were several exchanges). I did my best to guess where I was headed, and ended up going wide left of the exchange chute. I veered pretty sharply right to end up getting underneath the flags, but ended up getting DQ'd for wandering so far off of the preset course (as did the guy who followed me).
The last race of the season for me that year was semi-state (unfortunately), where I was also DQd. It was my superstition to warm up without my race singlet, and then put it on right before the race. For some reason, I'd forgotten to put my singlet on, and arrived at the start line with my racing shorts and a long-sleeved tee, but no singlet. We had several JV guys with us, who warmed up and were ready to jump into the race, just in case. I sent one of them back to our camp to get my jersey, but he didn't make it back before the start. I said to hell with it, and started the race with my long sleeved tee on. About a mile in, I pass my coach, who yelled at me to take my shirt off. So I did--an proceeded to continue racing with just my shorts on (mind you, this is mid-November in the midwest). The course dips into a ravine in some woods, where I passed several of our girls, who had already raced. One of the smaller girls (5'4", 100#) tossed me her singlet, which I (5'11", 155#) wriggled into in the ravine. I ended up finishing, and one of the team dads tossed me my singlet in time to give the officials the strip from the bottom of my bib.
The funny part of the second DQ was that one of my college teammates had a picture of him, from that race, end up in his HS yearbook. Who else would end up next to him, but me, running without a shirt.