Joey Hands wild ride...

Sounds to me like the egress problem might not have been so much releasing the HANS but that it snagged on the window net. I think a real issue here is top-only net releases. If you are upside down, you have to use one hand to hold the net out of the way. Perhaps the rules should require dual releases.
 
***Perhaps the rules should require dual releases.***

Perhaps the rules should require arm restraints & $crew the window net. Open top cars don't have rules that say you SHALL have window nets. The friken rules for SCCA racing are as bad as the politics within the SCCA & all forms of goverment. The cost of safety will soon drive many people OUT of racing.
 
Does anyone know how the hans was caught in the window net? Did the car have a mesh type net or the traditional style webbing net? I would imagine the newer mesh nets would significantly lower the chance of anything getting stuck on it...
 
I don't find it hard to remove my HANS at all with the quick release tethers. I can exit my car in about 8 seconds, door closed...the bottom line is that I don't think any of us practice egress often enough. You'd be amazed at how good you can get at it.[/b]
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Umm by my best guess then you are needing a second point of release - how does the product you have chosen warrant licensing as 38.1 and another product requiring the same release not? That is the point not that you shouldn't be allowed to use HANS but that I shouldn't be restricted from using Isaac.

Agreed egress is not practiced in a timed manner often enough - what with window nets, cool shirts, comms gear, steering wheel, drink tubes and who knows what else in the future.


The cost of safety will soon drive many people OUT of racing.[/b]
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At the same time the cost of insuring events drives sanctioning bodies out of Motorsports take a look at stage rally.
 
***Perhaps the rules should require dual releases.***

Perhaps the rules should require arm restraints ...[/b]
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Or PERHAPS, if the real issue is egress, we should just be required to demonstrate that we can get out of our cars in XX seconds, regardless of the gradoo that we choose to have hanging on us. It's called 'performance assessment' and there's no substitute for measuring what we really care about, rather than getting distracted by inputs, outcomes, or proxies of the action being examined. Do it for the annual tech, suited and helmeted, then have spot checks during the season.

K
 
Kirk,

I understand your point about demonstrating your ability to exit your car in a timely manner, but how do you do that for cases where the car is upside down or on its side?

I'm inclined to agree w/ David on this one. Dump the window net requirement and make everyone run arm restraints. You can run an open-top car w/ a high front hoop, which is essentially the same cage configuration as a tin-top. Why is it ok for them to run arm restraints but not for someone in a tin-top?

The top-down release requirement for window nets is silly. As evidenced by both Joey Hand's and Brian Mushnick's incidents this past weekend, it doesn't do anything for you when you're upside down.
 
Or PERHAPS, if the real issue is egress, we should just be required to demonstrate that we can get out of our cars in XX seconds, regardless of the gradoo that we choose to have hanging on us. It's called 'performance assessment' and there's no substitute for measuring what we really care about, rather than getting distracted by inputs, outcomes, or proxies of the action being examined. Do it for the annual tech, suited and helmeted, then have spot checks during the season.

K
[/b]
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Wow!! What a great post.

I think that is the smartest idea I've heard on the subject. Use a performance assessment to determine who races and who doesn't. You get to use your (commercially available) HNR as you see fit. Get rid of the SFI thing, just say comercially available so that some guy doesn't show with rope and a bungee labeled HNR. You demonstrate first hand knowledge, you live. Do it once a year. It's on record (documentation). Besides it may be a wake up call to the 300 lbers that they can't get out of their car in under 20sec. without even wearing a HNR. I would make it MANDATORY for all drivers w/or w/out a HNR. Just use egress performance as part of the anual, just like physicals are required.


This is where the ISAAC, Hutchins whomever crowd should be putting their efforts...not trying to fight SFI (capitol hill) ratings.

Good thinking Kirk!

R



Details?

R
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Rob,

Brian rolled his ITA 16v Golf 4 times comming out of Turn 10 at the 12 hour race at Summit Point this past weekend. From the reports I got (didn't see it first-hand), the car landed on its roof.
 
This is what I saw and heard on the radio net. The car did finish on its roof. Driver took some time to get out, but there was a short period where movement of the driver could not be determined by Pit or station 10. Driver did get out on his own to my knowledge. However, I think disorientated as he stood for a period of time on the traffic facing side of the car till a corner worker got him up the berm wall till medical arrived.
 
The net issue is pretty easy. Mine has quick release top and bottom.

The performance rating is, of course, way too logical.

Trouble is, it shifts liability. The clubs lawyers won't go for it in a million years, even after a dozen martinis served to them by strippers.

Why?

Because, with a performance standard, the SCCA has deemed what is acceptable, and what is not. In the event of an incident, the widow has an easy time finding an ambulance chaser who will hang the case on the SCCAs decision that XX seconds was an acceptable egress performance, when her husband died in a fire that engulfed the car in XX minus 3 seconds. Or any of a zillion similar incidents.

Sadly, the whole SFI thing is loved by lawyers because it spreads the liability.

And it's not about successfully defending cases like this as a club, it's about not having them brought on the club in the first place. The sad fact is that when a suit is brought against the club, the club loses...whether the suit has merit, or is won, or not.

Common sense is fast being driven to extinction by avery litigious society.

(Look at the Porsche Carrera GT case in Cali. The widow of the passenger (who himself owned a Lamborghini) is suing every last breathing body that was on the site the day her husband climbed into a Carrera GT with a guy he'd NEVER met, went driving thru the infeld of the Cali Speedway at 165 MPH, swerved to avoid a slow moving Ferrari just coming out of the pits, lost control and slammed into a concrete barrier, killing both, ...at a Ferrari "Drivers ed" event. There were so many mistakes made there that she's going to be in court every day for a year, LOL. But ..the biggest mistake, made by her husband, (Unknown driver, goofy club event, no restraints, ultra high performance, known inadequecies in the track, etc) is being ignored)
 
I talked to Brian afterwards, as did others, and I'm sure he'll chime in here. However, he indicated that he was perfectly fine afterwards and was hanging from his harnesses, waiting for assistance from a corner worker. When it didn't arrive he eventually "lifted" himself from the tension of the belts to be able to release them (after remembering to remove the steering wheel) and crawled his way out.

I was there on the wall when it happened. I missed the beginning of it but the rolling most certainly caught my attention. Ended up on its lid in the gravel about a car length off the racing surface.

After crawling out he stood there for a moment before the corner worker - still up on the earthen berm - called to him to get him to climb up. Brian recognized the crowd with a flourishing bow, blew a kiss to his concerned wife watching from the pit wall, then climbed up and kneeled down to catch his breath. His re-told conversations with the medical crew are classic Mushnick.

See some discussion - and an in-flight photo - in the Endurance Racing section of this forum.
 
And that filled in all the gaps I was left with from my position at the track and keeping tuned in on the radio network. Good to know he wasn't knocked out. again I only got the tracknet info, I never got the followup.
 
***At the same time the cost of insuring events drives sanctioning bodies out of Motorsports take a look at stage rally.***

One thing is for sure with you ED, you'll never be wrong with your catch all statements. Gee, lets raise the insurance rates because many existing classes wear arm restraints. (Sorry K) Anyone racing with ditches, stones, trees & other stuff of nature on their road course shoud be run out of business or they should pay 100% of their insurance costs. & anyone who stands on the ditch banks witching the rallys should have a mental health analysis. Would ya sit in stands with no guard rail/fence & watch a oval sprint car race ?


***The friken rules for SCCA racing are as bad as the politics within the SCCA & all forms of goverment.***

For you ED, I should have explained that insurance companys & the SCCA risk analysis people are also politicans.

ED, If you can't view the direction that MANDATORY safety items are going ya need to sharpen up your knowledge. If ya think the HANS is the answer all please read some data of what the HANS will & will not do for head & neck protection. Then read the comparable data that other H & N restraint devices as to what they will provide. Please tell me what other safety devises along with the HANS are required to give a driver equal protection to another well designed safety devise we all know of. Product details please, not blanket statements. For this conversation forget the blanket statement of SFI 38.1.

Nuff said by me.
 
Trouble is, it shifts liability. The clubs lawyers won't go for it in a million years, even after a dozen martinis served to them by strippers.[/b]
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That alone suggests their thinking is flawed. :P :birra:
 
As someone with a set of arm restraints in his gear bag, who has used them - a lot - in closed cars, I'd be totally fine with the no-nets option. However, I believe that they not only keep our arms IN the bus, they have the potential to keep other stuff OUT. I'd still use them if i didn't feel that adding them to the other things in my life - drink tube, Isaac cord, harness pull straps, radio cord - didnt' make them a net loss in the safety equation.

I looked at the option of a top- and bottom-release net but couldn't figure out an elegant way to do the bottom, given our door bar design, that I could get to down next to the seat. I'm going to revisit it, however.

K
 
Hesitating to get into the discussion at all, I feel there is a different issue mediating all of the facts regarding his egress from the car. Let me first provide the disclaimer - I wear a HANS in the race car, I might have chosen differently buying it since I've learned more about ISAAC, but maybe not. I'm not unhappy with what I have and feel it a big step up over the ridiculous foam collars of not too many years ago.

So I'm taking this from the perspective of both a driver an Flagger. I've been a flagger since 1988 and have responded to several roll overs at several tracks. My current home track is Summit and has been so since the early 1990's. So - that said - in many cases where a car has sustained severe impacts to the top, front, side, back, etc... doors don't open, drivers who normally don't egress through windows have trouble regardless of the equipment they are wearing. I've seen radio's hang them up, as well as just not getting clear of the belts in an upside-down car.

Now - as much as the driver wants to get out quickly and without catches, sometimes enough damage has been done to the vehicle to require the Jaws or at least a standard issue corner worker knife, to remove belts and window nets. That's what corner workers are there for.

I think the discussion about how long it takes to get out of a destroyed car is misplaced. The point is he had the 'appropriate' (as in - it did it's job) gear on so that he could worry about the next step - getting out of the bent car. Perhaps he would have had just as much trouble getting out with no head/neck restraint, we don't know. I can get out of my car pretty fast with the HANS on, but don't know about how fast it would be if it were on it's roof. Arm restraints are a good option, but like was said before, the nets also keep stuff out.

Jason.
 
***they have the potential to keep other stuff OUT.***

K, & others no question about the net keeping stuff out. But in the big picture 50 % (guess) of the cars within SCCA road racing don't have a window net. ;) Lets have the SCCA legal begals & insurance companys do an analysis of the window net/arm restraint. They might come to a conclusion that if one item is good that two should be better. Now we can all spend more $$$ on safety gear. :cavallo:
 
I'd go along w/ the "they keep things out" arguement, but we're required to run w/ the pass. side window down. Personally, I think the potential egress issues outweigh the benefit gained by a window keeping something out of one side of the car.
 
***At the same time the cost of insuring events drives sanctioning bodies out of Motorsports take a look at stage rally.***

One thing is for sure with you ED, you'll never be wrong with your catch all statements. Gee, lets raise the insurance rates because many existing classes wear arm restraints. (Sorry K) Anyone racing with ditches, stones, trees & other stuff of nature on their road course shoud be run out of business or they should pay 100% of their insurance costs. & anyone who stands on the ditch banks witching the rallys should have a mental health analysis. Would ya sit in stands with no guard rail/fence & watch a oval sprint car race ?
***The friken rules for SCCA racing are as bad as the politics within the SCCA & all forms of goverment.***

For you ED, I should have explained that insurance companys & the SCCA risk analysis people are also politicans.

ED, If you can't view the direction that MANDATORY safety items are going ya need to sharpen up your knowledge. If ya think the HANS is the answer all please read some data of what the HANS will & will not do for head & neck protection. Then read the comparable data that other H & N restraint devices as to what they will provide. Please tell me what other safety devises along with the HANS are required to give a driver equal protection to another well designed safety devise we all know of. Product details please, not blanket statements. For this conversation forget the blanket statement of SFI 38.1.

Nuff said by me.
[/b]
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DAVID - you completely lost me - I don't even know where to start.

I don't blame the SCCA at all for the condition of stage rally - I blame a lack of individual responsibility in the US and a complete acceptance of litigation despite full personal responsibility being the causal factor of "losses". The result is insurance costs that made stage rally fiscally unfeasible.

The second half I don't even know what you think I have said that would result in what you typed and without that context I am not even sure what you are getting at.

My knowledge is quite full and sharp. I think 38.1 is arbitrary and contrived outside of its quantitative standards. I believe Isaac is the best answer for me as it is as effective or more so at H&N restraint than any alternative and it allows me to get the heck out of the car - full egress, single point of release be damned.

Now if somehow the second half of your response was based on those views you will need to clarify for me.
 
regarding the requirement of timed exits, whether it is good or bad, from the NASA CCR:

"16.2.2 Emergency Exit Time
The car must be setup to allow drivers to exit the car quickly in an emergency. Drivers
will be tested from time to time to ensure that they can meet the specified time for exiting
the car in the event of an emergency. The driver must demonstrate the ability to exit
their car within ten (10) seconds by opening the door (for cars with doors) or formula /
sports racers, and within fifteen (15) seconds by way of the window opening for sedans.
Drivers must be wearing all of their required driver’s gear and be tightly belted into the
driver’s seat when the clock starts. Anyone that fails this test may be penalized with
penalties ranging from a fifty ($50) dollar fine to exclusion from participation until
corrections are made."

i have releases top and bottom and hope i never have to use them. will have to look at a way to release the right side triangle net when i add that in case i need to crawl out the passenger side.

tom
 
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