emilio700

iTrader: (3)

For the most part, yes.

In Saturday's Supermiata drivers meeting, we talked about the emergency exit evaluation we would have at the end of the races. I tried to stress the importance of practicing all scenarios and why. I gave a few examples and rough statistics. Made a few jokes. I mentioned that amongst close cockpit race car injuries, burn injuries are a high percentage. A few drivers were more than a little freaked out about that stat. I agreed and stated that was my point. It should get your attention now so you can be prepared if things go wrong on track. I don't like sounding like a fear mongering insurance salesman but I'm doing my damndest to reduce the chance of a driver getting hurt in my series.

That said, I have little tolerance for HPDE or w2w driver that says we are over reacting. You want to run HPDE with crap safety equipment and never practice emergency exits, that is fine with me. You are culling the gene pool in mankinds favor. But don't mock or make light of those who actually want to be around and fully functional for a few more decades.

aidandj

iTrader: (5)

I don't think that any jokes made on the previous page were to mock people who are practicing good safety.

I'm a firm believer that everything can be joked about and should be. Doesn't take away from the message though.

OGRacing

iTrader: (1)

as much as i agree with you, a little humor can keep attention.

Og gives safety classes all over the us. In my classes i'll crack jokes about my self, "that guy", cars, as well as dig deep into the painful situations like being burned alive. if it was 100% being killed, most people would shut off their brains out of discomfort and plug into an Iphone.


what i love about that cage is it's all pipe tubing. and by "love" i mean go into a toddler like fit of rage.

aidandj

iTrader: (5)

I like to think that the cage was built as a joke, keeps me sane believing that people that stupid don't exist in this world.

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

Somewhere in that same photoset are a few shots of the crush-bends in the front, where the vertacles angle back from the windshield. They literally look like the "do not bend tube this way" illustration in the LeMons How To Not Fail Safety Inspection manual.




edit: found one.

OGRacing

iTrader: (1)

100% agree. when i first started at OG i asked myself "why am i here" and i gave myself the task of Making sure all of my racers come back safe. it's not an easy job, nor have i been 100% successful.

the biggest challenge i face is not competition. it's getting into peoples head that what they are doing is actually dangerous. that proper protection is not expensive nor hard to get, but is easily messed up. I find that a good education is the best starting point. but if one knows the risks, knows how to prevent injury, and ignores it anyway... then there is noting i can do.

-Johnny

PS: i had to go to a good friends funeral on Sunday. karting accident, he wasn't wearing his helmet. if you got the gear put it on.

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

As an aside, I found this image (one of a series which are all similar) on the website of Thriftway Auto Body, which runs a side business doing chassis fabrication, as an example of the quality workmanship they did for a customer:



Click on the URL above to see their whole album. It's all pretty much the same; competently welded but questionably designed.

dasting

Considering every single aspect of that cage/seat/harness is done incorrectly, I'd like to think it was built on purpose to test people performing race-tech inspections.

I'm not sure though that it was :/

dasting

Edit #3- just clicked on the link to see whole album. Had same reaction as OG below. That's some scary ****.

Reminds me of the S2000 cage that circled around a while ago.



Edit - side view. Scary thing is I'm pretty sure this cage went into production and sold a decent amount. Tons of pictures of them.

OGRacing

iTrader: (1)

why are you guys doing this to me? *smashes computer*

asmasm

iTrader: (1)

Wow. Its like they intentionally designed every load path to involve an S bend. Also, the combination of single bolt joints with no diagonals is horrible. That cage could fail when a single bolt broke.

OGRacing

iTrader: (1)

bro cosco bro. bro bro

sixshooter

iTrader: (12)

The pic with the Kirkey and the Home Depot plumbing rollcage was supposedly from a roundy-round junker class car. Everything about it was scary. I especially liked the upper harness mounted to a drywall joist or whatever that was.

I also like the rebar windshield protection in Joe's post and the "fold up like a swiss army knife" s2000 rollbar. I think it is very important to point out what not to do and mistakes others are making so that us laymen question everything we see and don't take for granted that the pretty welds and paint mean quality or functionality. "So your harness is bolted to the body? Great. What's on the back side of that bolt? There better be a big plate or we aren't going out on track."

MrJon

I've been following this thread, and learning a lot. There was a couple of brief mentions of driver/fire suits, with the take advice that at a minimum for HPDE cotton/natural fibers, and long pants and sleeves are a good idea. Also that cheap fire suits can be had for $150ish but those are likely the type that lose their effectiveness fairly quickly in the washing machine, and then for Nomex suits you are looking at more like $4-500, for good comfortable suits.

My question is, is Nomex underwear a good compromise solution for HPDE? Some shopping around looks like you can get SFI rated Nomex underwear top and bottom for $100 on the low end, and $250 on the upper end.
Is there some reason just wearing the top as a long sleeve t-shirt would be a waste of time?
Any comments on this item?

Speedway Tru-X-Factor Carbon Underwear, SFI 3.3

OGRacing

iTrader: (1)

it's a fantastic way to start your collenction. your socks and underwear have Tons of spandex that can melt. a good set of nomex underwear is a good place to start to remove the spandex.

I would stay away from carbon –x and the speedway underwear. In the fire protection world… price= lightness. The super cheap nomex underwear is very heavy. Ad that with a cheap suit and you suddenly have a very heavy outfit that will heat up very quickly. On the on line forums I have had people say things like “racing suits cause heat exhaustion”. beware of people that say that because they bought the cheapest suit they could find. My G-force sfi3.3 underwear I use for colder events (sub 40*). For any event I run that is over 40* I run the track gear underwear. it’s 10x thinner.

G force sfi3.3
link here


traqgear sfi3.3

link here

MrJon

Fair enough point about weight, but it looks like the TPP rating of the speedway stuff I linked is 14, and the gForce is 10, so it appears that you do get some extra protection in exchange for the extra weight. Do you have other reservations about the speedway stuff? Or is it mostly just that it's too hot when combined with cheap heavy suits?

I know it's probably not wise to base it purely on TPP, but it seems like a useful number to take into account.

I'd be interested to know the TPP for a regular cotton t-shirt, and a regular pair of denim jeans. Just for a frame of reference.

Besides I think I can still win the HPDEs running the air conditioner

OGRacing

iTrader: (1)

the #2 danger that you face in a fire is the sweat on your skin boiling. #1 is the open flame. that's why you see driver that come out of fires they have burns around their wrists. the extra layers from the gloves traps the sweat. that sweat needs to be able to evaporate before a fire.

month after the fire.



bulking up with heavy suits is the same as where your gloves and suit meat. it allows the sweat to collect and not evaporate. if your buying a sfi 3.3 undergarments, it would be silly to buy heavy and cheap items now, just to spend the money again on lighter options.

OGRacing

iTrader: (1)

i'm not a big fan of only basing my fire protection on tpp numbers. those numbers are calculated off burn rates on a mannequin in a lab. if we where going to be on fire in a lab, and the suit was on for a not a very long amount of time, then we would look for a maximum tpp number. but in the real world we aren't mannequins, we have sweat and other fluids that need to evaporate.

that and everyone we have worked with that uses or has used carbon x (speedway) undergarments, has hated it. it is very big and heavy. we do use carbon X for covering seats. it does a great job at that.

Monk

iTrader: (3)

Do you have any suits with thumb loops sewn into the cuffs?
All of my firefighting gear has this for the very reason you just posted.

OGRacing

iTrader: (1)

we don't offer that. It could be added to any suit at alterations. PM me and i'll send you extra carbon X material left over from making seats. or the other option is get a boot cut suit. we have plenty of those.