Book was delayed due to a variety of personal events, but it should be out in late Spring or early Summer this year. You can see a sample of it on the product page here: http://www.speedrunscience.com...

I merely provided a model. The model implied that the score wasn't possible.

If other individuals believe that my model and its implications were incorrect or incomplete, the burden of proof is on them to provide evidence of cases that don't conform to the model.

1. No - it doesn't matter whether the processor is running at 5 kHz or 10 GHz, timing would always be tied to the number of times the main loop executes. Since the increment is fixed and not based on real-time, there would never be an opportunity to gain additional distance or inputs where the time didn't also increment. Clock glitches could potentially affect certain mechanics, but multiple glitches at very specific points would be required to significantly impact the time.

2. No - see above. Video rate would have no impact on how the time was derived.

Hi, I'm Omnigamer and I initially investigated this score back in April/May 2017. I performed the reverse engineering on the game code, and developed the spreadsheet model. You can find more information in my initial post on reddit, which also includes links to the Dragster simulator spreadsheet: https://www.reddit.com/r/speed...

Just to answer a few other technical questions being brought up in the comments:
-Accuracy of emulators isn't part of the equation here, since the models were drawn up from machine code. You can argue that there may be some other anomalies in the system, but so far none have been discovered or observed in the wild. That said, the game lives almost entirely within the MOS 6507 in the Atari, which is among the most studied processors on the planet.
-Changing the system clock would have no effect on the end time; the displayed timer increases by a fixed .0334 every gameplay frame per player. A faster system clock would also impact video output, as other commenters have noted.
-The currently available "optimal" solution for in-game parameter of distance is known, and cannot reasonably be performed by human hands. This time is a 5.57, and is about 150 distance units from being a 5.54. The best available human strategy is about 220 distance units from a 5.54. Covering that remaining distance would require a breakdown of multiple game mechanics.

I'm happy to answer other technical questions as well, either here or on my Twitter ( @TheOmnigamer ). Thanks!