Drag strip cronomether

As I want fast response I may end up using comparators and just triger and interruption, that would be the fastest thing, because adc conversions take a while until they are done(125KHz clock and each conversion takes 13 clock cycles).
Now my big doubt is in really what sensor should I use, photocells are a bit slow I think, but IR sensors shouldn't detect the red laser, so I dont really know :confused: