Red Light Answer

[Jason Oldfield]

Originally Posted by Mike Taylor 3601

Does'nt it take infrared beam to activate system so other light sources can't activate it?

That's absolutely correct Mike. But, it is possible that the IR light could have come from the photographers flash, even though all we see is visible white white (I'll keep this short because if you want the whole description, you can go through my science lesson again).

In the end, as I said previously, in order for something like this to happen you would need to have a perfect storm of events take place. So, that's why I don't think we have, or will see it happen all that often. From my perspective, the simplest rule is to ask the photographers to refrain from taking flash photography directly at the line (i.e. shoot down the track all you like), or until the fastest car is in the process of launching (this obviously also eliminates the potential distraction issue for the drivers as well). If this were done, we'd never have to worry about anybody claiming that a photographers flash impacted the outcome of their race.