Dark days ahead in Rochester if Daylight Savings Time ends

Mar. 15—Dear Answer Man: Please make time for this one. If Minnesota is forced to stop having Daylight Savings Time in the summer (and so the sun would set an hour earlier than previous summers), wouldn't that significantly adversely affect the youth and adult sports that use unlighted fields for practice and games? — Evening Daylight Lover.

Evening,

As the old song goes, I wear my sunglasses at night ... because it's still light out.

First, let me start with this: While there is talk about ending Daylight Savings Time, it hasn't happened yet, except in Arizona, Hawaii and a couple of other U.S territories such as Guam, American Samoa, Puerto Rico and more. And while states can individually opt out of DST, according to the Uniform Time Act of 1966, they cannot place themselves in permanent DST.

An earlier sunset doesn't mean less sunlight overall. It just means sunrise and sunset are an hour earlier through the summer. So, if we did away with DST, you'd just need to wake up an hour earlier to experience the same amount of daylight.

But when the hour happens does matter to folks.

First, we reached out to Jeremy Deetz, president of the Rochester Youth Baseball Association.

"If DST were discontinued, we would likely have to move up practices and games up 30-60 minutes," he said. "We do have lights at our nicer game fields, but not on most of our fields."

Deetz said he doesn't like changing time twice a year, but would vote for making DST permanent. "I like having more light in the evenings rather than in the mornings."

Spoken like a true night owl. Deetz, you are a kindred spirit with Answer Man.

Next Answer Man's helpers had an illuminating chat with Cole Queensland, general manager and (sometimes) driver at Deer Creek Speedway, located a couple of miles northwest of Spring Valley.

This year, Queensland said, the dirt racetrack will host races starting at 7 p.m. instead of 6 p.m. Daylight Savings Time, he said, is a big part of that.

"When it gets dark, people tend to stay home," Queensland said. As for changing the start time for racing, "People have more time in daylight to do their stuff and still come out to the track."

On race day Saturdays, the track is competing with people doing other activities, whether it's getting off the golf course or a day of fishing.

He also noted that when racing starts in the spring, it means more daylight and warmer air temperatures in the stands for fans by having the sun go down an hour later, thanks to DST.

Then, he said, the track itself is different in the sunlight compared to when the sun goes down. While he can see better during daylight, Queensland said he prefers to race his race car when the sun is down. Part of that is the sunlight makes the dirt drier.

He said it's also beautiful at the track as the lighting transitions from sunlight to electric lights.

"Racing conditions are better under the lights," he said. "I prefer where it is with the extra hour of sunlight."

Send questions to Answer Man at answerman@postbulletin.com .

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