In the United States, practically every major sport tends to run in one direction: counter-clockwise. Baseball runners sprint from home to first base to second base and around the diamond counterclockwise.
Track and field athletes sprint and hurdle their way across the track counterclockwise. The main line of thought is that nobody knows exactly when sports started going counter-clockwise, they just did. The first well-accepted date of oval automobile racing in the United States was in at Narragansett Trotting Park: a dirt horse racing oval in Cranston, Rhode Island. Seven cars some with electric, some with internal combustion engines entered the race and the winner had an average speed of only 20 miles per hour.
The track at Narragansett went counter-clockwise, and so naturally, so did the automobile race. As races kept happening, they kept driving counter-clockwise, and just like that, a tradition was born. But it's quite not as simple as that.
While horse tracks in the United States always go counter-clockwise, the same can't be said of English horse tracks. In England, many tracks actually run clockwise. Some historians claim that the only reason that American horse tracks run counter-clockwise was because the British ones ran clockwise, and as an act of defiance following the American Revolution, Americans built their horse tracks to run opposite their British counterparts'.
Add a comment. Active Oldest Votes. If all running events are run in the same direction it means that it simplifies the process of setting up the equipment across different venues. The drivers generally try to keep to the inside of the track because it is a shorter distance around the track So by making all left turns, the drivers can better see what is going on around them. Safety reasons, keeps the driver away from the out side wall guardrail in the old days. Moving counterclockwise we have a better control and move faster.
Improve this answer. Ram Chandra Giri 6, 3 3 gold badges 18 18 silver badges 61 61 bronze badges. Dor Cohen Dor Cohen 7, 7 7 gold badges 41 41 silver badges 72 72 bronze badges. Usually the race line is outside to inside to outside, allowing the shallowest and lowest-G turn, thus retaining the most speed. On short tracks with no restrictor plates, you'll sometimes see drivers take a very high outside line for the entire turn because they can just power through it faster than someone hugging the inside.
Val Val 1, 7 7 silver badges 16 16 bronze badges. In my opinion, the reason for only left turn in races is as follows: Most of the races take place in the northern hemisphere. Yaitzme 1, 3 3 gold badges 16 16 silver badges 34 34 bronze badges. Nikhil Kumar Nikhil Kumar 29 1 1 bronze badge. Steven Nettles Steven Nettles 9 1 1 bronze badge.
On a rear wheel drive car, the torque from the engine pushes the left rear wheel down and tries to lift the right rear wheel up. Turning left at speed puts more weight on the right wheels, thus counteracting the lifting effect from the engine and making the car more stable.
Turning right at speed would mean even less weight on the right side and a possible loss of traction. Featured on Meta. Now live: A fully responsive profile. Linked I have been going to horse racing tracks for a long time. But for those of us who enjoy horse racing history, counter-clockwise racing has an interesting backstory. Ancient Greeks and Romans raced counter-clockwise, but in most of Europe, horses raced clockwise.
Did the United States turn back the clock to follow the forebearers of racing? Or were there other reasons that determined counter-clockwise racing?
There are three primary theories why horses run counter-clockwise during a race. Counter-clockwise horseracing in the U. During the American Revolution, patriot emotion was high, and colonists sought to separate themselves from all English traditions. But there are other theories why horses race counterclockwise in the United States. Counter-clockwise horse racing in the United States can be traced to one person, William Whitley.
Whitley was born in to Irish immigrants living in Virginia. He married and eventually moved to Kentucky with his wife. In the English entered a pact with the local Indians, promising the land west of the mountains would be reserved solely for their use. Whitely and his family had to move around the countryside and seek shelter and protection at area forts. Sometime during the s, Whitley had returned to his home in Kentucky.
In he built a large brick home and added a horse racing track on the property the following year. During the period Whitely created the track, Thoroughbred horse racing was very popular in England.
The house still stands and is open to the public in Stanford, Kentucky. The race track built by Mr. Whitley provided a much-needed distraction for the locals. Horse racing continued on the Whitely property until the Civil War. Whitley established a tradition of counter-clockwise racing on oval tracks that influenced other sports such as car racing and track and field events. Interesting fact: Belmont Park was established in The horses raced running clockwise until The Coriolis effect determines the direction a storm spins.
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