Matt Romanowski

I've seen it enforced too. I've been on both sides as a CI, Steward, and participant.

Matt Romanowski

It's completely insurance driven. The race belt manufacturers and certification says those belts are only good for 2 or 5 years. The auto manufacturer has no guidance or requirement for the length of time an OEM seat belt is ok. PCA won't make a ruling saying that while the manufacturer says the belt is no good, they say it's ok. Stupid liability stuff, but I understand that one.

Now the person who is happy in 35 year old belts....they are probably making a bad choice.

ProCoach

That's not what it says on the PCA minimum DE requirements. https://www.pca.org/drivers-education-minimum-standards

They don't make the distinction between SFI and FIA in the Club information website for minimum requirements for DE.

They do say that SFI and FIA dated harnesses must now be replaced every five years. Period.

They also say people are free to update their harnesses more frequently than five years.

This is why folks need to get their stories straight. If you pitched me from an event because I had a three-year-old SFI harness and the minimum requirements for the Club DE's, as posted ON the Club website were five years, I'd be pissed...

ProCoach

Show me the Naughton or K&K rider for the general liability umbrella for the Club that says this is a requirement for DE, not just an inference made up by the folks making the rules.

I just went through the BMWCCA Operations Manual for Driving Events, all 186 pages, and while "equal restraints" are required for both driver and instructor, and "harnesses must be installed (italics mine) according to the manufacturers recommendations," it says NOTHING about expiration dates...

Other recognized and prolific DE organizations, likely just as loaded up with lawyers as PCA (sorry, @LuigiVampa ), do not state this requirement anywhere, even though the underwriters for these specialty policy covers are the same for all.

NaroEscape

Peter - yes it says '5 years from date of manufacture' but no belts state date of manufacture anymore.
It also states "The SFI standard requires seat belt to be replaced every two years based on date of manufacture. The FIA standard requires the seat belt to be replaced every five years based on date of manufacture. "

Yes, this is confusing. No question. I was on a presentation with the National DE staff and they were VERY specific about using the 'Valid Until" dates on the tags, UNLESS the tag had a date of manufacture...which nobody does anymore.

Here's the other part: if a sanctioning body allows belts past the expiration date, SFI and FIA will not back you on any lawsuit.

I've had a standards informational page about SFI vs FIA vs OEM that stole from someone a while ago. I just posted on our blog page.
https://naroescapemotorsports.com/sf...iration-dates/

RossP

Personally, I would rather instruct a student via radio with my car behind theirs instead of in front. I can help them much more if they are right in front of me.

Veloce Raptor

Agreed

LuigiVampa

I have only done lead follow with drivers who have been on track a few times and have some basic knowledge of what they are supposed to be doing.

I'm curious to hear how it plays out with someone who has never driven on track before. I don't have much to compare it to for a beginner but I feel like I have more control right seat.

ProCoach

Thanks, Bob.

ProCoach

The exercise I'm talking about, from SBRS, is for novices starting from ground zero.

There are no radios in the student cars (although there are now low powered FM transmitters that could be used in instructor cars for student cars with FM radios), and the students rotate behind the instructor.

Also, there is a pit lane coordinator, someone with a radio in the pit lane where you summon a student car to the pit lane and have a corner instructor with a radio give feedback, then send them back out.

It's just to get people going, familiar with the line and usually, the instructors can alter speed upward as the group gains confidence and experience. Rarely is the instructor's car overrun...

TXE36

I don't see how this works with green newbies at all. I've had greens who may putter around the track at 30MPH or others who would try to take a turn "flat-out" if not for me in the right seat dealing with the issue. And while those two examples are extremes, how does lead follow help the typical green on mental overload? How do you correct vision during LF? How do you correct driver's position? Etc... I suspect the answer is a lot more detailed classroom time, but that is going to be tough too.

For the newbies, I don't see how you instruct them without being in the car and deliver the education and fun we have all become accustomed to.

mglobe

Mike, not picking on you at all but this line of thinking fits in to the discussion. Neither you nor I have any expert knowledge on the degradation of belt performance with time. Yes we can all google and find into, but that makes us only experts at googling. The manufacturers, FIA, and SFI have set standard for when harnesses need to be replaced. If we tell attendees “yeah those harnesses look fine, go ahead” we are exposing ourselves should something unfortunate happen. Few like that reality, but it is reality.

WRT the 30 year seatbelt comments, I’m not sure how many (if any) car manufacturers stipulate replacement of belts after a certain amount of time. If they did, PCA, Chin, HOD,... would probably be forced to put rules in on seatbelt age also. I wonder if the lack of seatbelt replacement intervals is because the manufacturers just have not done it, if those belts are not made to withstand the same forces, If they are made differently, or any combination of these possibilities.

TXE36

Perhaps this works better than it sounds. I have to admit, the first time I attended a PCA HPDE event the instructor idea sounded "a little nutty" to this newbie. Perhaps the only difference is this technique is different.

PGas32

Probably not a huge concern, but I could envision instructors who race not wanting to rack up hours on their cars doing lead-follow. Maybe not such a concern on my lowly SPB and I’d be happy to do it (hearing the radio would be the issue there...), but hours are awfully expensive on Cup cars. Just saying, could reduce the Instructor count by a handful per event

ProCoach

Bingo is in bold.

You know, people used to learn how to do this all on their own... And they didn't crash, turn into a cartwheeling ball of fire or anything of the sort.

Then came professional schools. They were the ones that perfected this. Forty-plus years ago, and 18 Indy 500 winners came out of just SBRS. Jim Russell, Bob Bondurant, Skip Barber, Bertil Roos, Spenard-David, just to name a few.

I understand people are wedded to in-car instruction and not a few believe that there is NO way to instruct a novice without it. That's a shame, because the evidence does not support that.

It's a new world. Change or die.