Originally Posted by jjones752:
I think that's been Mr. Dobson's point all along; the finish line isn't crooked, it appears that way because of a phenomenon called "parallax".
Parallax is "a displacement or difference in the apparent position of an object viewed along two different lines of sight, and is measured by the angle or semi-angle of inclination between those two lines" (Wikipedia).
Unless you are seated exactly aligned with the 2 points marking the inside and outside ends of the finish line, you could never be 100% certain that what you think you see is what is really the case, and if you had a camera in your hands, the picture would show the same skewed perspective. The same thing happens when you're driving in your car; with the speedo directly in front of you, you can CLEARLY see that you're going the speed limit, but over in the passenger's seat, the Missus is convinced that you're CLEARLY 5 mph over. That's parallax (and a potential domestic dispute). If this were a (shudder) paved track with a painted finish line you may have a better argument one way or the other, but come on, people! They made the best call they could under the circumstances. Sheesh.
You are correct with your parallax comment, but are the pictures attached in this post a finish line camera? If so it would be directly on the finish line across the track...