Mahler9th

Thanks for posting such great info. And its a good reminder for folks to spend some time this winter going through all of the gear and their equipment. You can sometimes get surprised by what you find. For example, a few years ago I found some badly chaffed Schroth Hybrid sub belts in my car. They were about 2 years old and chaffed from rubbing on the Recaro seat's rubber grommet.

And of course take a fresh look at things like how your seat is mounted and the condition of the parts. At our last event, I was watching a race video Saturday night on the flat screen TV on the side of the trailer. My friend and I ( a pro racer who runs a well-known shop) noticed the driver was moving around quite a bit in his seat. Without a word we went over to the garages to see how his seat was mounted. We found he had nearly torn through one of the alu upright holes in the rear, and the other was on its way. The next morning, this driver, a well-know PCA exec bought new uprights from our friends at Wine Country motorsports.

Another time a friend found stress cracks in my wing uprights about an hour before my quali session. He had been casually walking by. It helped that he was engineering the Brumos 59 car at the time and was pre-disposed to such casual scrutiny.

So get out there in the shop... maybe with a few friends, and check her out.

Mahler9th

It would have been interesting to hear what these safety experts think about driver's suits. As you all may know, PCA allow you to wear an SFI single layer suit with "fire retardant" underwear with unspecified specs. This suit can be as old as 1984 when the SFI spec was established.

But you cannot wear a brand new FIA 3 layer top-of-the-line 1986 formula 1 quality suit (for example new old stock), with or without underwear.

Matt Romanowski

When she grabbed the wheel, the wet gloves were compressed and heated up, making the steam that burnt her.

I don't know about the exact F1 helmets, but from what we were told they have to meet FIA 8860. Those helmets perform about 20% better than a Snell helmet and start at around $2500. Interestingly, I heard that the major price increase is becuase of the low volume. If the volume was the same as a Snell helmet, they would only cost around $100 more than the current Snell helmets.

It was nice meeting you. It was a realy great session!

The concussion data was very interesting. Expecially how many people kept riding when showing obvious signs (nasuea, vomitting, blurry vision, etc) of a problem.

Talking about the head injuries, Dr. Trammell said that the standard care for a major crash is a full body scan (can't remember the real name). The radiation from it is something like 4x what people experienced at Hiroshima. He said you were better off smoking your whole life than having one of those scans! Takeaway - Make sure you're helmet fits.

Gofishracing

Stand 21 has them. $$$ - wow
http://www.stand21ga.com/products.r-...-duty.f-7.html

Darkstar1

Sweat is a big issue in fire. In the film business we use "stunt gel" with mostly carbon X undies and suits for the majority of our intentional burns. The gel is cooled on ice and the main reason is to keep the stunt man that knows he is about to be lit up from sweating. When the sweat is there the steam burns are about to follow. The stunt gel is also sacrificial and helps absorbs the heat. And yes there is nothing like lighting a man or woman on fire no matter how many times you do it.
Anything you can do such as multiple suits, undies or gloves to remove the sweat of the day is a great idea...

pu911rsr

Matt,
Great post, thanks for sharing all this information. John is the best, I meet him at a PCA DE event many years ago, very knowlegable and very humble.
Phil

f4 plt

Matt:

Just got around to reading this thread, and lots of good info. While I do not PCA race so therefore am not interested in a driving suit, I have had two cockpit fires in fighters when I was flying them and Nomex and good gloves are a must. Also in the military ( at least back in my days) only cotton underwear was allowed again because of the fire hazard.

As for helmets, I'm in the market for a new and lightweight helmet and have narrowed it down to Aria but I will have to look at Stand21 before I buy. Fit is everything. I wore a Protection Inc helmet that I bought when I was flying combat as the Air Force issues ones were fair at best and constantly had "hot spots" which were distracting. I can't say enough about properly fitted good helmets so you are not constantly distracted from the job at hand by an ill fitting helmet. I also want a helmet with a wide eye opening so my vision is not restricted even at the extreme side vision. That too can be distracting. Bottom line is how much do you value your head and body.... the cost of good protective clothing then becomes very reasonable.

Matt Romanowski

Another interesting thing that has been covered here before - proper belt installation. We've all seen the Scroth recomendations, but here it is from SFI http://www.sfifoundation.com/SeatbeltGuide06-05-12.pdf

Jerrygreene

Matt, was any mention made of cool shirt products with their plastic tubing?

thanks

Matt Romanowski

No and I didn't think of it until later. I should email Dr. Trammell (if I can find his email) and see what he says.

Nick Wong

I bought a S21 duo purpose (came with visor and duckbill) a long time ago, I think 1998 or thereabouts. SA95. Really, really light which is why I bought it. Fit like a cardboard box even with custom fit. Perhaps it was my gargantuan head that caused fit problems, I don't know. Finishes were substandard. Chin lip on the shell cracked on the gel- non structural- just from setting it down right side up (I don't know how to set a helmet down any other way). Rubber seals were junk, didn't seal anything. Visors were poorly shaped to the curvature of the helmet.

When the SA2000 helmets came out I went Arai GP-5 and never looked back. I use a GP-5w in my laydown kart now (for downward visibility to see the M4 gauge which neatly fits within the lowest edge of view), and a GP-6rc in my sit up kart and in DE events. Fit and finish is much better than that Stand21. With a proper shell fit, the only thing i have changed are the cheekpads. Like everything in life, I'm sure they have improved, but why bother switching back after such a negative experience?

KNK123

Matt, thanks for posting this interesting information.

After doing my helmet research, I decided to go with a Stand 21. I was fitted today for the IVOS Double Duty helmet at the Stand 21 store in Costa Mesa, California. Mathieu Hayaud and his team were incredibly helpful, knowledgeable, friendly, and fantastic to deal with. The customer service they provide really is top notch. I can't recommend the Stand 21 folks enough.