This paper deals with a robust RFSID (Radio Frequency Self IDentification) system for road-to-car communications. The RFSID-based system operates in Ku-band and consists of a fixed transmitter, located at the road side, and of a receiver unit placed on the moving target, i.e. a car in its first proposed application. A slotted waveguide antenna array is used to illuminate the moving object at the desired position, whereas a four-patch array antenna is adopted at the receiver side. Both the antennas have been designed using numerical simulations based on a Finite Difference Time Domain (FDTD) algorithm. When the moving object crosses the antenna beam a triggering pulse is generated by the receiver; such a pulse can be used to reset or update the electronics aboard the vehicle and to log specific information coming from location-based systems (LBSs), into the car equipments. A digital transmission of gold sequences and a post-processing unit have been exploited so far to increase the robustness and the accuracy of the system. At this stage of the development the system benefit of extensive field tests, being adopted for some years by many top Formula 1 racing teams as a lap trigger system, used to reset the on-board electronics when the car crosses either the finishing line and peculiar path reference points. The temporal accuracy exhibited is better than 1 ms with a coverage of about 90 m.