JCP911S

M758 brings up some good points There are always reasonability tradeoffs and nothing is risk-free, but in the overall context of my (very meagre) DE/Racing budget, $650 for a seat or even $1000 for a HANS device is not alot of money if it proves effective.

Nobody ever gets into a car to crash, but it happens every weekend. Guys spend $4K for a set of Fikse wheels and bitch about buying a race seat... now that doesn't make sense to me.... if someone said I "only" had a 1:1000 chance of being paralyzed for life, vs a 1:10,000 chance, personally, I'd pay $1K to buy the 1:10,000. Even though both the risks are pretty much theoretical.

If you've ever seen somebody get med-evaced out of a track... its something you don;t forget.... and also the walls are just as hard in DE as they are in a race.

Most of the guys in Club Racing are pretty well equipped but I've seen safety equipment in DE that would chill your blood... when you consider the speed potential of the newer Porsches even (or particularly) with a novice driver its serious.

I just feel like anybody who can afford a Porsche can affort basic quality safety equipment... we aren't talking about thousands of dollars here...for me, if I think about it off the track then I don't have to worry about it on the track.

prg

Sorry about being slow to respond. The belts must go over the flanges of the HANS and stay there in a high g impact. The belts must be close together behind your torso otherwise they will slide off the side of the HANS device. My race car is a formula mazda. The seat consists of a custom molded bead seat laid into the body work. The shoulder belts are mounted on a bracket immediately above the top of this bead seat. There isn't a sedan type seat ( and therefore no shoulder belt holes.) The HANS manual says that the shoulder belts must be no more than 5" apart, preferably 4" or less. My shoulder belt mounts were about 5 1/2" apart and the belts would slide off the top of the HANS device (rendering it completely useless.) My point was that your sedan seat with belt holes may have to be modified or changed altogether to get the shoulder belts close enough together so that they will stay firmly over the HANS. If the shoulder belt mounts and shoulder belt holes in your seat are 6" apart, you are going to have to change this arrangement if you are going to effectively use a HANS device. You may be able to fudge the 5" maximum belt separation a bit if you have a sternum protector clasp on your shoulder belts holding the belts together immediately below the HANS device, but I'm not sure how secure it would be in the high g impact we are all concerned about. If your seats shoulder belt holes are more than 4"-5" apart, you will need to address this issue if you wish to use a HANS. An ISAAC may be more cost effective if you're going to have to swap out your seat to accommodate a HANS. Just food for thought.

fatbillybob

PRG,

Thanks for the info. That was valuable for all. The hole placement is a significant issue. Again an area where this is not an issue with Isaac. Also sterrnum straps can cause problems. They help to limit belt stretch and decelerate you quicker. Lots of sactioning bodies forbid them because you are more likely to rip your pulmonary artery to the heart. This use to happen in the old days of 3 point shoulder belts and cars that did not have crush zones. The guy crashed car looked great but he died. Finally, if the HANS does not have lateral support as stated by another poster then the Isaac again can help you out. While lateral support was not part of it's original design there is lateral support there.

GeoffD

Guys,

Thanks for all the good points here. This is very timely and usefull discussion for me (and by the way a hell of a lot more constructive than some of the stupid name calling and s%$t that goes on elsewhere in Rennlist)!

PRG, could you clarify one point. Is the 4" required seperation between the inside edges of the belts or between the centerlines of the belts? As the shoulder belts are 3" wide, you would have 7" between the centerlines and mounting points if you had 4" between the inside edges of the belts.

In the case of my two cars, the details are as follows;

924S Momo Nascar Seat - Inside edges of belt holes in the seat are 3 3/4" apart, belt centerlines are 6 3/4" apart

FV1200 BRD - belt centerlines are 4 1/4" apart, inside edges of belts are 1 1/4" apart when hanging loosely (obviously they open up around the driver's neck when fastened).

My guess is that both are OK for a HANS.

gd

GeoffD

Well I just ordered a HANS.

I looked at their web site and confirmed that the 4" spacing is between the inside edges of the belts.

By the way Smokey, regarding the Shannonville off that you described......I can say with some experience (10+ years of motorcycle racing there) that while the grass run off areas look smooth, they are most definitely not! There is only about 6" of top soil over the limestone there and the run off areas are full of holes, rocks, car and body parts etc. Although running off sometimes looks like an inviting option, you should do everything possible to avoid it. I have the scars to prove it!!!

Keep the rubber side down!!

gd

smokey

Geoff, in five years of DE, I've never had four wheels off. I've watched two cars hit the wall - hard - in front of me at Mosport, been a close spectator to a number of spins , and had two wheels off at the exit of Turn Two. And oh yeah, in 1982 I went off the track backwards (into the gully) after a 270 at 5B in my 1962 Ferrari GTE, which is probably what has induced me to stay on the pavement since. But the law of averages will catch up to me, so the HANS is on its way.

GeoffD

Smokey,

No doubt you sound like a sensible guy. But.... you are right, stuff happens that you can't avoid.

I've been doing DE's for 10 years and PCA racing for 6 years. In PCA racing, I've had had zero contact incidents, one spin (no damage) and zero off tracks while being competitive so I consider myself to be reasonably safe.

Last fall I did my first F1200 race at Mosport. I was just about to catch up and lap two guys who were racing each other for position. Right at the top of Turn 2 (ohhh God!!) one of them tried to go outside the other and they touched wheels sending both of them sideways down the hill. I had no where to go but tried to "slalolm" between them. I almost made it but hit the outside guy's left front wheel with my right front wheel. After the dreaded "wheel to wheel contact" my car was lauched five feet in the air and completely cleared the front of the other guy's car before coming down with a crash on the other side. All I remember is a strange and quiet calm while I was in the air, followed by a big noise when I came down.

When surveying the considerable damage, we noticed that the top of the steering wheel rim was pushed in about 2". At first I thought my right arm had done this during the impact.....then I realized it had been my helmeted forehead (can you say belt stretch!). Hence, a very bad headache for days.

Anyway, the moral of the story is that I got collected in someone else's mistake, and this can happen not just in racing but in DE as well so we should all be as prepared as we can.

In an earlier post, you mentioned that you thought some people might think it would be overkill for you to have a HANS for DE. I think you are being prudent.

By the way how does a Ferrari like off roading?

gd

mitch236

I can say belt stretch but I can also say neck stretch. Your neck can stretch considerably and it is not good. Another reason for HANS.

I only do DE and wear a driving suit, cool shirt, HANS, have head bolsters, fire suppression, roll cage, kill switch. I don't care what people think. I have a family and want to do everything to insure I go home afterwards.

smokey

Ferrari's don't like off-roading much, but there's a wall at 5B now, so it could have been worse. I broke a Borrani wheel ($700 in 1982$ !) and sheared the brake lines when I hit the curbing sideways, but if the wheel hadn't broken, the car would have flipped, as happened to a 365 GT 2+2 at the same spot. I got a lift to Toronto, and walked home from the subway. My wife saw me walking down the street with a SEG, and I didn't go back on the track for over a decade. And when I did, it was with some excellent UCR DE instruction. Onward and upward. FWIW, Stirling Moss did not spin or leave the track during his first two years of racing. So it is possible to be fast and stay on the track. Not that I'm fast.