Highly qualified academic sees a kind of elegance in short contest measuring speed (4,4)
I believe the answer is:
drag race
'speed' is the definition.
Both the definition and answer are singular nouns.
Maybe you can see an association between them that I don't see?
'highly qualified academic sees a kind of elegance in short contest measuring' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
'academic' could be 'dr' and 'dr' is found in the answer.
'a' is within the answer.
'elegance' could be 'grace' (I've seen this in another clue) and 'grace' is located in the answer.
This accounts for all the letters.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for drag race that I've seen before include "Fast track career" , "Acceleration contest between cars" , "In speed test" , "motor sport contest" , "motor event" .)