Does the reaction time make a difference to the over all quarter mile time?

 

No

You can sit at the light for 60 seconds after the tree goes down and still pull exactly the same 1/4 mile time.

The timer starts when you leave the line not when the tree goes down.

Here is an example of a run against my Son on sat. He had a faster time than me by .2 secs but I actually beat him across the line and would have won had it been a race. Although he had a 12.1 vs my 12.3 his reaction time was almost .3 slower so I would have actually won the race by .1169 if it had of been eliminations and the slip shows me correctly as the winner.