Due to the inclusion of the Caliber 9900, which we’ll get into in a bit, the Master Racing Chronometer uses a two-register design with a date window at six. This cleans up the dial and creates a bit of welcome negative space, but I am partial to the triple-register layout used in every Racing model until this one. It’s a purist thing. Running seconds still appears at 9 o’clock, but elapsed hours and minutes now appear on a single register at the 3 o’clock position. Combining these two measurements keeps it neat and compact, but it can be slightly frustrating to decipher if you’re accustomed to scanning a typical triple-register layout. You read the elapsed time like you would read the standard time. There’s a date window at 6 o’clock that I could do without. I think Dominic Toretto from The Fast and the Furious films hints at the sort of spiritual clarity that can be experienced from the pursuit of motorsport when he proclaims to a young Brian Spilner, “I live my life a quarter mile at a time. Nothing else matters: not the mortgage, not the store, not my team and all their bullshit. For those 10 seconds or less, I’m free.” The chronograph is the only function that’s needed to time those 10 seconds. It doesn’t matter what day it is.
I’m being slightly facetious here, but there’s certainly some merit to subtracting functions instead of adding them. It’s a philosophy that’s prevalent at the racetrack: Remove all unnecessary weight and superfluous systems. The fewer things to fail or go wrong, the better.