[tardyp]

For non mid west born ppl,

A dragstrip is a facility for conducting automobile and motorcycle acceleration events such as drag racing.

Although a quarter mile (1320 feet, 402 m) is the best known measure for a drag track, many tracks are eighth mile (201 m) tracks, and the premiere classes will run 1,000 foot (304.8m) races

[speeder]

US people and their weird measurements :P

But honestly, why these lengths specifically?

[saalweachter]

1/8th mile = 1 furlong.

Many short races, for feet or horses, that started way back when are some number of furlongs.

[speeder]

Now THAT is an interesting information, never heard of "furlongs" before!

[saalweachter]

It's a fantastic unit if you need to convert distances from metric to imperial, because 1 furlong = ~200 meters. So if you tell someone something is half a kilometer away and they ask what that is in imperial, you can quickly respond "2 1/2 furlongs".

[HeyLaughingBoy]

A furlong, the approximate distance that an average draft horse can pull a single-bottom plow before needing a rest, is my favorite measurement because it sounds so grounded in reality. It's just how long the furrow is.

Right next to the parsec, but only because of the Star Wars references :-)

[wrycoder]

Snails are rated in furlongs per fortnight.

[AdmiralGinge]

As much as we like to point fingers over the Atlantic, here in the UK our roads are mostly imperial except heights and widths which are in both feet and metres, because lorry drivers from the Continent kept crashing into bridges!

[bluGill]

They are even (in our wierd measument system), and reasonable distances for different engines to run out of power/traction/other factor and thus not accelerate as much.

[shoes_for_thee]

Important also to note that a quarter mile is the unit at which one quantize one's life.