well like i said, i can't speak for how he does it, i don't know. but i would imagine it was the first to show up? or whoever was on the other side of the radio said a random 1, 2, or 3 representing what car sat where in line? but as far as 1st round bye runs the rules state
The potential first round (only) bye run of eliminations will be awarded to the first car to arrive in the front of the lane when there is only one lane assigned to the class. If there are multiple lanes for a class, the Staging Director will determine which car gets pulled aside for the potential bye run by pulling two chips. The first chip denotes from which lane the potential bye car is selected and the second chip denotes which car in that lane is selected for the potential bye.
