Forum: HoseHeads Sprint Car General Forum (go)
Moderators: dirtonly  /  dmantx  /  hosehead

An earlier thread about the late WG show got me thinking about this:

Has anyone ever actually put a stop watch to the actual time spent racing during a normal night of racing?  Just curious.  I think about this because it is claimed that during the 4-5 hours it takes to play the Super Bowl, there is only 11-12 minutes of actual football being played.  Someone said the WG show with 410's and 305's lasted 5 hours last night.  I would be curious to know the amount of time actually spent under green.  With the right atmosphere (Nationals Saturday night) I don't even care about the delays and buildup---it's kinda fun.  But, with a regular show, it gets to be way too much sometimes if we just sit and watch nothing happen.  

(I don't have a dog in this fight----I wasn't at the WG show, so I'm not complaining I'm just curious)

It’s probabkt fairly easy to figure it out, just take the number of laps scheduled to run under green and then multiply by a rough average lap pace. For the National Open, 6 8 lap heats, 2 6 lap dashes, 10 lap c main, 12 lap b main and 40 lap a main. 122 laps (check me on that) and say a 18 second average lap. 2196 seconds of racing, or about 37 minutes. 

Some of my local dirt tracks do a great job of sqeezing an hour of entertainment into a six hour window.  ;)

Stan Meissner

More than you think. Sometimes before a race they complete 4 plus laps just tl get lined up and parade. Waste of time.  Lmao. 

An edited video of a complete nights race (showing just the racing) is usually about an hour or hour and a half long.

Jeff Kristensen

Do the math for an NHRA Sunday finale.    4 divisions, 16 cars each.  That's 15 races per divison (8+4+2+1) meaning 60 total races that average around 5 seconds each.    5 minutes of actual racing that takes around 5 hours to complete.  

11-12 minutes in an NFL game? Its played with a time clock, 60 minutes

I think he is talking about how much actual football is played, not including time spent in and out of the huddle and setup as the clock is winding down. It varies per game depending on how much time each team uses in between plays. In high school we ran triple option and had maybe 40-45 plays a game. I think we figured it out a couple times and we spent about 5mins of actual play time.

As far as the races I think it's around 1hr to 1.5hrs. I don't mind breaks during events like the Nationals. Gives transfer teams time to make adjustments and makes it more fair

Hockey baby. 60 minutes is 60 minutes.done in 2 hrs with 25 minutes of zamboni time.

Even though I may not know you, I 
care what most of you think!

Unless overtime in the playoffs!! High School played a playoff game that went into 7 8min over times. Played defense and had multiple guys injured during regulation and played half the game with only 3 defensemen. Was drained after it was over. We all pitched in to buy our goalie & the sophmore who scored dinner at a steak house the next week

Yep I believe it was the Wall Street Journal or maybe USA Today did a study/audit of NFL games and they found there is an average of 11 minutes of actual game action. Tjink about it. Ball snapped, 3 to 5 seconds of action, 1 minutes break, 3-5 seconds of action, 3 and a half minute commercial break.... The NFL=bored city for me. Hockey all the way. 60 minutes of actual action. 

Sometimes I drive 2,3,4 maybe even 5 hrs to a race. Not really looking to turn around and head home after 37 minutes.

How many minutes for curling in Revelstoke, BC?

I heard that a track in NJ uses a stop watch to measure the down time between green flag racing...durayion of yellows...time required to clear the track etc. If this starts happening at the Grove the person with the stop watch will be fired or banned from the grounds. They can't even tolerate a live stream of the dismal state of affairs...not because people will stay home and watch...but because they need to control how many people find out how bad the conditions, crowd and racing really is. 

Lincoln 1845 ft/.35 mile T1=118MPH 
Eldora 2287 ft/.43mile T3=135MPH
Port 2716 ft/.51 mile T3=TBD
Grove 2792 ft/.53 mile T3=135MPH
Selinsgrove 2847 ft/.54 mile T1=136MPH
"I didn't move to PA from El Paso in search of better 
weather." Van May

And 48-49 minutes of it was the clock running while players returned to the huddle, stood in the huddle and walked to the line.  I don't remember the year they did the actual timing but they said the ball was in play for 11-12 minutes total.

I have been watcing every PPV from Williams Grove that's been available for a few years, and I'm on the verge of stopping. The racing has gotten very boring there. Only a few guys seem to be able to go forward and the rest seem to be stuck in one groove. It looks like they could bring the walls in on both ends of the track by the amount of unused racing surface every event (sarcasm). I think the culprit is the speed and tire and wing size of todays sprinter. Damn sprint cars are getting to be like slot cars. I seem to remember seeing videos of the Grove from years back when it appeared to race wider than it does today. Is that a correct statement?