Jerseybean

Dude you managed to kill an interesting conversation about a topic that even this weekend at the grand-am LRP race affected a driver. I looked at your feedback and for a while I thought you were funny but now it's really annoying, and to be honest when I see your name I just skip your post.

John D.

Gentlemen, sorry for the interruption...

"Mr. Bullitt" has left the building.

Please carry on with the original subject of this thread, which was not about Mr. Bullitt.

My Best to all,

John D.

Veloce Raptor

Actually, this is a pretty key point. As was already mentioned in this thread, it is easy to over-use a cool shirt set up and over-cool the body. IMO for cars with no windows, use the cool shirt sparingly when at speed, even on very hot days. Save it for extended full course yellow periods when air flow into the car is significantly dimished & overheating your body is a much higher risk. Obviously in closed cockpits with closed windows, this does not apply. JMHO...

Gasser

Yup, Chocolate milk. Studies show a recovery benifit froma recovery drink with a 4;1 Ratio of carbs to protein and the low fat chocolate milk is very close to this mix. you can also buy some commercially prepared mixes for the same thing.
I don't think it serves the same purpose as its mainly intended to replenish your glycogen stores after very intense exercise that depletes your stores in muscle. Even though you loose a lot of water and electrolytes and your working hard, your not using up any where near your glycogen stores durring a race compared to say running for an hour. I think your much better off replacing your fluids with a water electrolyte blend. I like diluted sports drinks and you can get a low sugar kind if you want but some carbs here won't hurt. I only use the recovery drinks after an hour of intense cardio or weight training.

J richard

Thanks John...

Mahler9th

Again I studied the hydration and heat stress stuff in great detail. One of the US Army experts some time ago was Larry Armstrong (he was at USARIEM)-- he has been at UConn for some time since. All of the experts cross all of sports medicine, geriatric medicine, occupational medicine (mining, HAZMAT, forestry, farmworking, military, firefighting, aerospace, et cetera).

I was in touch with the start -up that worked on the hand cooling deal... not sure where they are now but funding and execution are the usual culprits. I have thought of a product for our sport that could work with the hand cooling idea... need to think about it more from a technical and business standpoint. May be an IP opportunity...

Be careful of the chocolate milk deal. These stories grow legs. Read the studies yourselves. When I was at Cantimer and doing market research, I spoke to many of the top physiologists, doctors and trainers in the country. I spoke to the folks on duty when Corey Stringer died. I spoke to Rick Berkholder at the Eagles who is very aggressive when it comes to hydration. I spoke to one college trainer in top-level div. 1 who was able to eliminate IVs in his half-time locker room (this is a big deal in college football). Chocolate milk had nothing to do with it. I had to do all of the reading and make all of the contacts because I was trying to raise millions from folks expecting me to have all of the answers. It was very illuminating.

One great story had to do with pickle juice. Eagles go play Cowboys in early season game and it is stinking hot and Eagles win. They made some comments about drinking pickle juice. Voila, beverage product(s) spring up based on pickle juice. Too funny. Its the salt, stupid...

Now the real business opportunity is to come up with a product that eliminates cramps.... Giants beat Packers in GB for NFC Championship in frigid temps a few years back and go on to win SB. Key Packers were cramping. That from Pepper Burris. Well, cramping and Plaxico Burris.

Anyway, for driver cooling, we have some great choices for most of our types of amateur racing. Two pretty good companies, and easy DIY opportunities.

924RACR

Cool, now that we can get back on topic... My personal, if limited, experience with the CoolShirt... seems like once I get going in the car, it's hard as hell to get enough, let alone too much, benefit. It's never bothered me, since I do hydrate and train well, and handle heat very well - but it rarely seems like the darn thing really does much.

We check pinch points, etc, and can having it working on the grid... but I can never get it working well enough to ever have to worry about turning it off once we head out onto the track.

Anecdotal aside... once ran a 45min enduro stint at NJMP... never really felt any cooling... sure enough, came back in and the stupid ice chest was still very full of ice...

My teammate tells the story (in line with the single-point cooling system) about running a motorcycle enduro... they'd mounted a helmet cooling system somewhat late, without time to test it... his teammate went out first with it on... but they'd done a bad job of installing it, and the temp control was out of reach of the rider, too low on the frame.

He (my teammate's teammate) ran his stint, it overcooled him... but he rode through it. When he came in for his stop... he staggered off the bike, spewed his guts everywhere, then slept for 24 hrs...

mglobe

What size cooler are you using? I had this experience with the 8qt FAST cooler. I built my own out of an 19qt cooler. I put in a sump pump that could move more volume than the standard one, and with the greater volume and higher flow rate, it is much more effective now.

KaiB

Interesting conversation regarding chocolate milk - the science is in and valid regarding its use as a recovery (i.e. post workout) supplement (among many others).

The cramping thing, on the other hand, has been the topic of many (many) discussions and research is all over the place.

Head over to ST and search cramping for fun.

North Coast Cab

I run my shirt anytime its 65d and above. I am with Vaughan that I can never get enough cooling. In an enduro the standard (12qt I think) can run out so cycling it or having the t-stat can extend the life of the coolness. If you run longer races often I would go to the 986 system. Also, the componenst in the cool shirt standard cooler are very common. The coolers are availble at boat supply stores and the pump inside is a $15 bildge pump available at the same store. Mine died and it took 5 minutes to replace it. I have thought about transplanting my cooler parts to a larger cooler but saw little benefit.

I also ran a FAST helmet blower, just fresh air, and found it of little use. You need to skirt the helmet and close the shield to get a good benefit and with only fresh air it is not beneficial. The cooler set-ups run a heatsink through an ice bath to cool the air on the way and are probably much better.

Finally, the drink bottle is a great inexpensive additon. You can use the hose and bite valve through the helmet for easy access or just grab it when you can. Even if you don't touch it until the race is over you'll get a drink 10 minutes earlier than waiting for the cooldown lap, impound etc. i run that all the time.

pat056

I use the helmet cooling only and it is great. I use the side air as the top air won't fit between helmet and roof. Air has stayed cool for 1.5 hour enduros. I'll be at VIR if anyone wants to see but never considered the cool suit with the helmet air...just don't need it.

multi21

The heat transfer idea is an interesting one. Imagine having a way to super cool the steering wheel to the point it can be felt through nomex gloves thus heat transfer and if it would keep a driver cool during an enduro.

kurt M

Chill the seat base and back. No connection to driver to slow an exit. down side is the transfer has to go through the suit.

The key concept that came from the study is that controlling the temp of the entire body can be done by heating or cooling a small blood active area. The blood will distribute the effect.

The hands system pulled a slight vacuum to produce a little engorgement and increase blood thermal transfer. For a driver in a car there are a number of good blood active areas. Armpits and the inner thighs are good. Cool shorts, cool tights?

A real answer is to get the cost down and efficiency of thermocouples up. Right now they are expensive and power pigs. They draw more HP off the alternator system that the = amount of weigh in ice does. They have the advantage of an endless cooling cycle. A real small AC compressor rigged to chill the cool shirt water would have the endless cooling advantage and quite likely be more efficient with the parasitic HP loss than electric thermocouples. It can be far smaller and lighter than a standard automotive as it is tasked with moving far less heat.

924RACR

Good question; I think it might be the 12-qt, pretty common size?

I agree re: pump flow - it seems logical to me that this may be the biggest limitation, just not moving the fluid fast enough.

I did notice the common bilge pump; have a spare on hand in fact. Maybe it's time to look into upsizing that alone. Most of our races are quite short; since we're not running out of ice just yet, I can only think that added volume would be a big improvement. Maybe even just add on an external pump in series...

924RACR

Update: F yeah we can uprate the bilge pump!!! My cooler has the Atwood Tsunami; going by the color codes, looks like the T500:
http://www.westmarine.com/webapp/wcs...classNum=10624

For an extra $20, we can uprate to the T1200, going from 500gph to 1200gph! SCHWING!