and in my opinion it actually requires much more skill. and trust me, it's not easy to fight for a perfect 0.500 reaction time. Yes, the reaction times are much more spot on when you can count, but now you're fighting over a matter of milliseconds, rather than a quarter of a second.

However, in the sport of drag racing, the reaction times are about anticipatory reactions, where the timing is calculated. To say that it's a 'real' reaction time is only true if you only consider pure reactionary reflexes to be 'reaction times'. (Thus taking out the entire purpose of the amber lights!!) A random starting light is called a 'flashlight drag', and they're really fun too for the weekend drag racer (if you can find such a race) - but reaction times are purely reactionary - there's really not a whole lot of red-lighting in those situations, because you're reacting to the light, rather than anticipating the light. Click to expand.You're actually not measuring 'real' reaction times by randomly popping the green light.

Professional drag racer reaction time