Why is it that you are not allowed to have a reaction time any faster than .500? It seems that the faster the better would be the case in drag racing. A friend of mine ran a 13.5 but was redlighted because his reaction time is .495 . Why is that?

 

i believe because technically as an amature racer(not the pro style tree) it physically and mentally takes at least .5 seconds to react to the green light and they don't want to test who has the best prediction as of when the light will turn on. because that would be relatively simple to just go when the first yellow lights up.

 

cause anything over .500 is red light, thats just how it is i guess, dont quote me on that, though.

 

i dont think that's true

there is .5 seconds between each yellow light...so basically if you had a .00 reaction you would have left right when the 3rd yellow came on and then .5 more seconds before the green comes on.

my guess: so you can tell how much you redlighted by...if the best was .000 it might be hard to display negative numbers

 

Reaction time: The time it takes a driver to react to the green starting light on the Christmas Tree, measured in thousandths of a second. The reaction-time counter begins when the last amber light flashes on the Tree and stops when the vehicle clears the stage beam.

http://prestage.com/articles/glossary.asp
http://prestage.com/articles/RT.asp

...so you see, with a full tree it's impossible to get below .500 without redlighting.

 

There you go... I've always wondered it myself. I thought the timer started when the GREEN light flashes...but it's actually the last yellow.