Sterling Doc

Yep, everyone bends over for this one - customers, retailers, even sanctioning bodys.

As far as the belts, tight is good, so they start restraining you immediately, but some degree of force limiting would seem to be a god thing. Many cars these days have both pretensioners, and force limiters that play out a bit of belt mid accident, after the pretensioner. I have the same question as above - if you don't want any stretch, than why aren't belts made out of Kevlar, or something less stretchable than the current webbing

ew928

Wow. Great for OG Racing stepping up to help their customers out.
Good luck with getting everyone taken cared of.


And if 'stretchy' nylon webbing is so bad, why don't they use steel belts that do not give for seat belts.
It'll stop you cold.

kurt M

A true shame that OG Racing has been drawn into the web of deceit woven by Impact.

gbaker

Cost and comfort.

gbaker

Some forum chatter is reporting that this incident relates to Snell certified helmets that have a fire-resistant "skirt" around the bottom. Apparently the skirt has an SFI label.

Amusing that SFI would "decertify" a Snell certified helmet.

WHB Porsche

If Schroth makes a Titanium hardware version of its harnesses for nearly $900+ why not a Kevlar version too?

Racerrob

Not the gov, how about peer review, scientific method etc... Greg says they do not release data. Why not?

gbaker

Sure, why not? There's a market for everything.

(A yellow helmet chinstrap is Kevlar, BTW.)

U4EEAH

So, 500 million a year budget F1 teams use the same harnesses as us to save a few bucks? This is black and white. Given all current data and safety research the belts/harnesses sold today are the ultimate safety protection, regardless of price or laymen's speculations.

gbaker

The question to which I replied asked, why not use steel belts? Obviously, they would be uncomfortable. Equally obviously, they would be more costly.

Belts used worldwide are adequate in that they survive an impact test of ~35Gs (IIRC), the industry standard. That a stiffer belt, such as Kevlar, would survive much higher loads while imparting lower loads on the body is irrelevant in an industry where the only issue is a relatively low-performance pass/fail test.

F1 uses what's available.

WHB Porsche

I would have to disagree with both. Considering the fact that club racers spend $1400 on suits when you could buy one for $300, buy $1000 SA2005 helmets when there exist $400 SA2005 helmets, I can't imagine that if Kevlar belts were safer they wouldn't be available for purchase.

And as far as F1 goes, in the land of $50,000 helmets and custom HANS devices, I would disagree that they "use what's available."

Circuit Motorsports

Be wary of comparing anything to a purpose built formula car cockpit. They have the luxury of building the car around the driver and that makes it a LOT easier to deal with things like seat belt stretch. The harnesses are many inches shorter, the lateral movement protection of the entire body is easyily contained by the tub, etc.

It's also not a factor of them "using what's available". It's actually quite the opposite. We have the opportunity to buy what they are using. No reason for the companies like Willans and such to make one-offs when they can sell those 900 dollar harness systems to all the guys with lots of money. Schuberth helmets are also available to the public, etc.

WHB Porsche

That's the point that I was making - F1 teams spec and use exactly what they want in materials and safety. It seems like G. Baker was making the point that they simply use commercial off-the-shelf items, which just isn't true.

gbaker

I have absolutely no idea why Kevlar belts are not used in F1. I don't wish to speculate. Then again, perhaps they are.

My point is that a Kevlar harness will be superior to one using a non-aramid fiber webbing due to strength and elasticity.

John H

Great news. I always hated my Impact harnesses. Now I have to replace them.