For some reason I feel compelled to point out that this is not accidental, but a necessity, because of the very origin of the term “clockwise”.
Clockwise rotation arose precisely because it is caused by the rotation of the Earth. When viewed from Earth, the Sun appears to move across the sky from east to west. In the northern hemisphere (above the tropics), this means that the Sun’s shadow will move from west to east across a northward path. West-North-East is a curve in the direction we have labeled “clockwise”, the direction clocks rotate to match the direction those shadows move.
And, as others have pointed out, there is no objective reason to pick North as the direction to assign Earth’s rotation. North is the pole where Earth spins clockwise, south is the pole where Earth spins counterclockwise. There’s no objective reason to select that orientation to view Earth, the Moon, Earth about the Sun…
This is also useful with Uranus. (Couldn’t resist.)
As for races, I have to wonder what role Confirmation Bais plays in this. In my city, there was a Bicycle race that switched direction because of a change in the layout of the roads in the neighborhood.
There is also an ‘Ironman’ style triathlon that goes Counter_ for the swim, Clock_ for the bike and some_from_column_A_some_from_column_B for the run.
My point is that anything more than exactly 50% of races going one way or the other might tend to give the impression that ‘the majority’ of races go that way. (Obviously anything more than 50% is a majority, but I’m glossing over that.)
Some designs are repeated—not because they are ‘special’ in anyway—but just because that was the way the coin flipped the first time.
Curl the fingers of your right hand in the direction of rotation and extend your thumb. Torque is positive in your thumb’s direction, negative the other way. This is a convention, so everyone’s math is the same.
I can’t find the reference (so sue me), but the company who made clocks with the applied torque pointed AWAY from the viewer had better marketing than the company who made clocks with the applied torque pointed toward the viewer. And you thought Microsoft was evil haha.