RacingJunkie

All my times of seeing an accident at a HPDE, it has been a head on or side collision. Never a rollover. Rollover doesn't even come into the equation when I am out on track. Maybe if it is pouring rain and you get soft spots on the grass, or the grounds are poorly maintained and you have grass ruts.

Bill Verburg

About a month ago I had a GT3 Cup barrel roll in front of me in West bend at LRP, Sh** happens when you hit a curb that's a tad high.

NC TRACKRAT

+1, Racing Junkie. Only one I remember was years ago, we witnessed a wierd one at a Road Atlanta (old configuration) DE. BMW lost it coming down from the bridge, over-corrected, slid across the track onto the grass, flipped over into the creek. Student and instructor hanging upside down by their harnesses with water filling the car. We got 'em out just in time. As for me, I'll always wear my HANS in any car with a proper harness, otherwise, a collar.

nrubenstein

IMHO, if you are going to wear a harness, you need to wear a HANS or equivalent. If I can't have a HANS, I'd rather be a a 3-point belt and let the stock safety equipment take care of me - that stuff is pretty good at keeping you safe when you are moving around.

To be honest, in a car with modern airbags and a full interior, I question whether the increased risk of neck injury created by wearing a helmet is actually offset by a real reduced risk of head injury. I suspect that it isn't, but no one has exactly studied it. If I were offered the choice, I would not wear a helmet on track in the E46 M3. (But absolutely would in the E30s.)

And after listening to some safety folks at the SCCA, I won't wear a collar, either. Too much potential to give the helmet something to lever off of, instead of limiting travel.

FullThrottle64

. Absolutely.

Please tell me you're not serious. Track speeds and grip create levels of injury risk FAR beyond the stock safety equipment's capabilities. There are good reasons that every major sanctioning body requires full cages, harnesses, SA helmets, and HNRs, even for B-spec cars that don't get much over 100 mph.


Agreed. Just bite the bullet and buy a HANS or equivalent.

nrubenstein

Let me be clear: In a DE situation, I am not convinced that a half assed mixed combination of some safety equipment actually makes you safer. What does a roll bar do? It provides next to zero protection in anything but a rollover and even then, roll bars are sketchy. What is the primary purpose of wearing a helmet? The protect your head from the cage tubing.

In a modern car, wearing a helmet with no safety equipment is a known risk - you a) increase the strain on your neck by making your head heavier (before airbags, this kept you from smashing your face on the steering wheel, and before seat belts, this protected your head as you went through the windshield), and b) increase the strain on your neck by changing the way that the airbags touch you.

To say that stock safety equipment is not designed to work at high speeds is absolutely not true. A 100% complete race car solution is absolutely going to be safer on track, but that's not what most people track with. Again, what I am saying is that most people track with a half assed cherry picked selection of safety equipment. I remain unconvinced that this is actually safer than none.

Edit: I should note that from a safety equipment perspective, I do not consider a 993 a modern car. In a stock 993 without safety equipment, I would still wear a helmet as well. "Modern" is defined here as a full array of airbags.

BigMikeATL

I'm don't race so my question isn't to be a smartass. How much of all of this safety equipment for a DE is for safety and how much is social plumage?

If I had a dedicated DE or Race car, it would have a full cage.

nrubenstein

You are required to wear a helmet in the US. (And pretty much nowhere else.) The rest of the equipment is generally a good faith attempt at a compromise between street utility (and safety - roll cage tubing is a HUGE head injury hazard when you are not wearing a helmet) and an attempt at track safety.

mcipseric

No social plumage here. Racing teaches you that anything can happen anytime. I have every piece of safety that I can afford. I will even skip events to save that money to purchase additional safety equipment. Safety is much cheaper and comfortable than the alternative.....

mcipseric

+1

Flying Finn

What you're saying there that every race car before HANS came around was worse for safety with their cages & harnesses than if they had just had 3-point belts with no cages.

With all due respect, that's just silly.

Of course HANS makes things safer but that doesn't negate the safety things that were before or without HANS, harnesses and cages are not safer than not having them.

Kinda like saying if you're not wearing the $20K Schuberth with a zylon visor strip, you're better off not wearing helmet at all.

Yep, there's always those very few accidents where someone gets saved because they were thrown off the car because they didn't wear a seatbelt but that doesn't mean not having seatbelt is safer.

nrubenstein

You are missing the point. I'm not talking about race cars. I'm talking about street cars that have some fraction of race car safety parts installed in them. (Mind you, "modern" safety equipment in street cars appeared on the market in roughly the same period as the HANS.)

There are two separate issues here:

Issue 1: Using a harness without using a HANS. This is a bad idea. Neck injuries are generally a greater threat than cabin intrusion, particularly in a modern chassis.

Race cars have always needed the best safety equipment available. Obviously, when HANS was not available, cages were still necessary. Likewise, a race car requires a fully restrained occupant as you do not have airbags, and you need to keep off the cage.

Issue 2: Installing some race car safety gear into a *street* car in untested combinations. I argue that this is not nearly as safe as people think that it is, and that the combination of race car safety equipment and especially airbags, which are designed for a minimally restrained occupant is, at best, neutral. At worst, actively harmful.

This is not about race cars. This is about mixing and matching two entirely different kinds of safety equipment at are not designed to work with each other. Do you see the difference?

Juha G

So what you are saying is that when Porsche sold a clubsport package (seats, harness, rollbar) to a GT3 customer, they actually made the car more unsafe...?

I mean, what's the difference between a harness or a rollbar sold by Porsche or some other shop, if they indeed can be the exact same product...

Flying Finn

Which is it? Better have harness or not? On one hand you're saying having harness without HANS is a bad idea but then you say that cage is necessary.

Whether race car or not, if you have full cage & harness, to me it seems you're safer with them even without HANS than with regular 3-point & no cage.
(no need to argue that cage needs to be properly installed etc. as that obviously is assumed when there is a cage)

Yes, and using HANS that is not properly installed has the same untested issues.

You're talking about airbags, right?
Whether they're bad in a car that has 6-point harness & full cage I have no idea. To me it would seem it's not a bad thing but I'm not educated enough to argue about it.

However besides airbags, I don't see how a street car with full cage and 6-point harness differentiates so much from a race car with full cage and 6-point harness and in that case, I have to believe all those races with their harnesses and cages before HANS knew something when they were using those instead of 3-point & no cage.

RacingJunkie

Most of the guys here can afford to have a cheap dedicated track day car. Miata, C4 Corvette or Mustang. You put a full cage in and all the safety gear and you go out and have fun. You will be safer in a full caged car with a seat, harnesses and Hans with less worry for you and your family.

Or do you just want people to see you in the Porsche?