► You go your way, I’ll go mine ◄ Yappari

A thought hit me the other morning. Why do most sporting events that involve circuits run in an anti-clockwise direction, with the exception of some motor-racing events such as F1?

Athletics, speedway, greyhound racing, NASCAR racing, speed-skating, cycling, and probably lots of others I've missed out. Horse racing seems to be run in both directions and seems to the exception in all of this.

I guess it could be coincidence as to why most races run anti-clockwise, as they have to run one way or the other, but I reckon there's more to it than that - I just don't know what.

I had a quick hunt on the web, and didn't find the answer I was looking for, but did come across this about F1:

…although in most cases the [F1] circuit runs in a clockwise direction. Those few circuits that run anticlockwise (and therefore have predominantly left-handed corners) can cause drivers neck problems due to the enormous lateral forces generated by F1 cars pulling their heads in the opposite direction to normal.

I also found this:

There has been a race track at Brands since 1926, when the land was first used for grass track bike racing. In those days, competitors ran anti-clockwise, but the direction of the circuit was switched in 1954.

Doesn't say why though.

Anyone?

Footnote: I doubt it has anything to do with the Coriolis Effect either.

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9 Comments so far

It’s probably an arbitrary convention, but perhaps it could be related to the fact that we read left-to-right in the west? I reckon seeing stuff moving from your left to your right, and following with your eyes/head, feels more natural as a result.

Matt, I agree - I had the same thought last night. I think it’s the left right reading convention. Which I think also helps to explain why Ping-Pong is so popular in China and why they are so good at it.

Don’t really follow how that explains the Chinese affiliation to table tennis.

Well, it’s to do with reading from the bottom-up - which is identical to the head movement you make when playing a shot in table tennis, yappari!

Well, that’ll be another factoid for the day then. Chinese is read top to bottom, right to left.

I thought they were good at it because a lot of them play it. Same way as us Brits are good at darts…

There you go - darts is another example - around the board isn’t played anti clockwise - or clockwise it’s a mixture of both

Is that why most darts players are fat?

Mmm - someone here’s just suggested that the tracks run anti-clockwise as most designers / engineers of the tracks will be right-handed and therefore less likely to smudge their work. However I think that most designers are more likely to be left-handers, as they’re the more creative types (factoid?). And also - most will be created on computer so it won’t matter whether they’re left or right handed… or does it?

Well that contradicts the fact that most motor racing tracks run clockwise - and they need designing a little more than an oval running track.

It’s got to be an historical thing, so I think your colleague is barking up the wrong tree - although it’s good to see people getting involved.

Just had a thought. The athletics relays would be much more fun on a figure-of-8 track.

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You go your way, I’ll go mine

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