I absolutely couldn't agree more with your CJ and Doug here. On the surface, it would seem easy to agree how to use a clock to time a race, but it's not.
When I was in Dubai, about five different people came up to me and asked if I thought Varsity had a legitimate chance. "Pat, did you see those times, 54 seconds, that's serious!"
Then commenced a discussion about how the US times races...
For the record - in places like Hong Kong, Singapore, Dubai, some others, an electric pulse is tied between the starter's mechanism and the timing systems - when the button is depressed, the pulse triggers the start of the timing - essentially, when the gate opens, the clock begins, and you get true distance timings.
What you also said about 6F CD races is also correct - realistically, those races are roughly 6 1/3 furlongs from the pure starting gate location to the wire, with a run-up around 200 feet.
|