The big boys are going longer? Even on 250 Olympic tracks? At our 250 someone strikes a pedal almost every week it seems (almost always in turns 1/2 during the neutral lap). I guess that depends a lot on whether you're a sprinter or an endurance guy. Endurance it doesn't really matter because you're going fast enough (especially the pros) but for sprinting I would think it would be a liability to not be able to go as slow on the banking and be forced to either speed up or go for the blue band while your opponent stays high and slow.
Does anyone know the calculations for a track to see how slow you can go? I stay above 15 on ours with 167.5 cranks and a 59mm BB drop. I've seen 13 or so without striking a pedal. They say you can go to 12, but obviously that depends on the bike and the rider's skill. This is on concrete. Indoors on wood I gather the friction between the tires and the track surface gets you before the pedal strike does.