it's is much more better to have a countdown to the race. no mistery there,
timezones and GTM are headaches, with summer time changing and all that stuff is horrible.
newbies are having dificulties to know when the race will start. this can't happen if we want them to be there for the race.
i think ppl joining from the phones want to race inmediatly, instead, they are finding hard to know when are they racing.
cheers ;)