QUESTION: How long does it take to compete in the whole 12 legs, excluding rest time? Has anyone calculated the shortest time a team took to finish the whole race? (Precise to hours, or minutes if possible.)
I cannot give you a precise amount, but let's work through the example of AR18. From the start line (Nov. 20, 2010) to the finish Line (Dec. 12, 2010) it took 22 days. The first assumption I make is that there will be 3 extended pit stops. Since I don't know where they happened, I will just add 2 x 24 hours to the total that will be derived below (note that if it were up to me to plan this race they would have been in Japan, Salzburg and Rio). Each line below represents the time between those legs. If a 12 hour pit stop was extended, it would have been a 36 hour pit stop. If an 18 hour pit stop was extended, that would make a 42 hour [pit stop.
Here are my guesses at average time between each pair of legs:
1 Sydney TBC, with a 12 hour wait for the charter flights to Broken Hill
2 rolling pit stop between Broken Hill and Sydney on the Indian Pacific Railroad 18h
3 another TBC going to Narita Airport with a 10h wait there
4 Lijiang 8h
5 Kunming 8h
6 Kunming 12h
7 Varanasi 18h
8 Salzburg 12h
9 Zermatt 12h
10 Zermatt 18h
11 Rio de Janeiro 18h
That gives a total time of 150 hours (6 days, 6 hours) to add to the 72 hours for extended pit stops. If we subtract 9 days, 6 hours from 22 days then we get 12 days 18 hours (274 hours) as the total actually spent not at rest.
If anyone has a better method of approximating this, speak up.
Although it's possible to calculate a total non-rest time for each race, why bother?