If you are not yet using a HANS device.....

The Z car that hit the wall yesterday at Pacific would also be a good example for wearing a Head and neck.
 
15-year-old Florida girl killed attempting to qualify for first race at Bubba Raceway

Tragic loss of a 15 year old racer on a 3/8 mile dirt track. From what I've read in several Google searches she did not have a HANS type device. But I've seen no definitive statements on it.
http://nydn.us/1iWqDQc

I'm all for the ICSCC mandating them like all our other safety equipment. The newest Necksgen Rev is very small, nothing like the first gen models.
 
Oh no dead horse, you aren't getting off that easy. I'm going to go look for another stick and really thrash you. Again. And again. And again ......

So you see this as MAYBE an indictment of driving a racecar without a head and neck support (you aren't quite sure, but when you find what you think might be a dead horse it's best to just get a stick) instead of yet another case of getting someone behind the wheel that probably doesn't belong there? Should a fifteen year old girl really even be in a race car? When I played football in school I trained for contact and lifted weights and worked on a neck machine non-stop for three years. Put a couple pounds of helmet on what appears to be a pretty noticeable lack of muscular development in the neck area of an underage girl and you have a recipe for disaster. What about the rest of her? She is still in the process of growing bone and connective tissue - was it really that wise for her to be exposed to the potential forces acting on her in an accident? Shouldn't it be ASSUMED that there is going to be the potential for an accident before ever getting in the car?

Believe me, my heart goes out to any parents that lose a child like this but a parents primary job is to help their children grow to productive adulthood by protecting them. Children are legally considered to lack the experience and wisdom to be responsible for important decisions so PARENTS are responsible for assisting in that department. As sad as it is, her death is a direct result of a conscious decision to accept the potential downside of getting in a racecar which include potential INJURY and DEATH just as it does for each and every one of us that race. The chances of it are actually very small statistically and it is our job to protect ourselves as well as reasonably possible from that outcome, but nobody can say that it was completely unexpected when it happens. If you haven't considered that possible outcome, no matter how unlikely, you shouldn't be racing.

By all means people - make wise decisions about your safety and think about the consequences of your actions both for yourself and for those who depend on you. Talk to your friends openly and honestly about the things that you think will make everyone safer and give them your well reasoned opinions about what you would like them to do to protect themselves. And while you are at it, avoid the desire to treat people who have the same rights and ability to think that you do like they are so stupid and foolhardy that they can't be allowed to make decisions for themselves.

Offer examples? Yes.
Considered opinions? Sure.
Plead emotionally? I suppose.
MANDATE? No.
Feel free to make important decisions for yourself and allow others to do the same. If your argument is SO compelling and indisputably true, everyone will CHOOSE to wear one without being forced, right?
 
I think I read somewhere that this was this girl's first time in a racecar and ALSO her first time on a track. I don't think her age (taken in isolation) made racing a bad idea, but who turns ANYONE loose on a track in a race situation (I know she was the only car on track at the time) with no prior experience?

(Rick is clearly of the Masten Gregory school of driver safety, preferring NOT to wear those stupid, mandated harnesses as it's much safer to be thrown clear in an accident. Same for helmets, fire suits, and any of those other stupid rules that got forced down drivers' throats by sanctioning bodies. Mandated safety rules are for sheeple, clearly.)
 
The whole issue with the HANS, or any other piece of safety gear is... What is really the net effect? People seem to be claiming that themselves, and others, are having incidents that would have been fatal without the HANS. So how many did we bury before the HANS? If we bury someone who was wearing a HANS, was it the cause of death? They didn't die until they started wearing it.

Same with the harnesses and their manufacturer's (and chief beneficiary of the purchase price) expiry date. How many belts broke before the 2 year expiry came in? I've seen a chart which purportedly shows the deteriation rate of the webbing and to me, material that flawed should not be sold at all, never mind being replaced every two years. Look at the belts in your street car. How old are they? Look at the belts in an airliner. How old are they? Why do competition harness evaporate after two years? Is it because it can be legislated that they be re-bought every two years? And look at the heaviness of the webbing, what kind of shape will you be in by the time the deceleration forces actually sever it?

Everyone comes crying "Liability, liability, liability" Who is going to sue and for what? Will someone actually come into court and say, "I wanted to change my belts, but they wouldn't let me." "I didn't buy a Head and Neck Restraint and they didn't make me buy one." It would be more realistic if someone said "I had to buy this piece of equipment and it didn't work."
 
EXACTLY wrong Mr. Adams - I DO wear harnesses, although I'm pretty sure the ones that are three years old are just as safe as the ones that are two years old. I BELIEVE they are a good safety measure and would wear them whether they were required or not.

I DO have a safe and well designed cage because I BELIEVE it is necessary for my safety and would have one in my car for door to door racing whether it was required or not.

I DO have a safe third party tested helmet because I BELIEVE that one is essential for my safety in any car that has a steel cage inside. I would wear one whether it was required or not.

I DO wear fire protective overalls because I BELIEVE that burning to death in a racecar is one of the worst things that I can imagine. I would wear one whether it was required or not.

I EVEN DO HAVE A HANS DEVICE which I wear most of the time! My main issue has always been the same as the eloquent point made by the Mr. Whitworth - is there really even a proven statistical "need" for such a device? Conference simply hasn't killed or crippled drivers for decades as a result of basal skull fracture. My background is in engineering and frankly there is very little that you can do from an engineering sense that isn't a trade off. Tires that stick twice as well have a tenth the wear. Engines that quadruple the horsepower trade away 95% percent of their durability. Every time someone mandates a new safety feature something must be traded away. In the case of shorter belt and helmet expiration dates the majority of that trade off is in the increased cost of those items and the loss of race entries and potential racers it causes. For a head and neck support the trade of has the potential to be more severe. Does a head and neck device have the potential to make it harder to get in and out of a car in an emergency? Yes. Would you care to discuss a preference between the potential for dying as a result of basal skull fracture (proven to be extremely low to negligible statistically in club racing) from not wearing a head and neck restraint and the potential for burning to death in a wrecked car that you can't get out of (again proven to be extremely low to negligible statistically in club racing) as the result of wearing one?

What we are arguing about IS NOT the relative value of different kinds of safety equipment potentially used in racing. What is in dispute here is whether you should be trying to MANDATE which decisions drivers make about their OWN safety without even fully understanding whether the changes you wish to cram down their throats actually increase or decrease their safety.

In terms of pure philosophy, yes - if Masten Gregory wanted to not wear belts and I judged him to be in full charge of his faculties and able to understand the consequences of his decisions then I would say he has the right to decide on his own level of risk. If I cared about him I would try hard to get him to change his mind and rethink gambling his life but in those days a Formula One car was an aluminum bomb filled with gasoline. Being thrown clear was probably philosophically preferable to sitting in a twisted mass of burning metal. Something like half of the Formula One drivers of that era ended up dying in race cars at some point yet they still willingly made the choice to get in the car and go racing again and again. Shame you weren't there with the power to just mandate that racing be made illegal and prevent all those foolish people from making their own decisions about how to live their lives. Gregory isn't that great of an example anyway because he died in his sleep at 53, many years after retiring from racing. Guess his decisions worked for him.

As for your "sheeple" comment - from your bleating I would assume that you would know a lot more about that than I would. The simple fact remains - it would be MOST safe if we just didn't race at all. Would you finally be happy that you have done all you can to protect me from myself when you mandate racing out of existence?
 
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p_whitworth said:
....Everyone comes crying "Liability, liability, liability" Who is going to sue and for what?......
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Apparently you're not old enough to have been around when Mark Donohue's family filled a law suit against Goodyear Tire, Bell Helmets, Penske Racing and various other entities after he was killed post F1 crash where his helmet split open. He died the day afterwards from a cerebral hemorrhage.

That cost $9.6 million in 1975 dollars. In the end, Goodyear took the big hit settling out of court just to avoid years of bad press if the suit had gone to trail.
 
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Richard Broadhead said:
Apparently you're not old enough to have been around when Mark Donohue's family filled a law suit against Goodyear Tire, Bell Helmets, Penske Racing and various other entities after he was killed post F1 crash where his helmet split open. He died the day afterwards from a cerebral hemorrhage.

That cost $9.6 million in 1975 dollars. In the end, Goodyear took the big hit settling out of court just to avoid years of bad press if the suit had gone to trail.
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Many of the rules in the various racing organizations are there to protect the organization from family lawsuits, not just to protect the driver. Injury and death will always be with us in this sport. We should do everything possible to minimize that, including modifying the cars to make fast egress in the event of fire simple, with or without a HANS type device. I had a driver at the Runoffs last year smack his FV into a wall and bend it. When instructed to get out of the car and over the wall, it took over 4 minutes of me trying to help him get his butt free of the thing. I have no clue how he got out of the car in the paddock. The stewards, watching on the video system, saw the whole thing and had a long chat with him about it. If one cannot get out of a car in a hurry, the answer is not to eliminate safety equipment. The answer is to fix the car or the driver so he can get out fast.
 
Hard to believe it's the 20th anniversary of the last death in Formula One racing. But what a HUGE one it was... Ayrton Senna... sigh

I still yearn for the day when we can watch Senna and Villeneuve race together. To this day I'm not sure who is the better.
 
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Richard Broadhead said:
I still yearn for the day when we can watch Senna and Villeneuve race together. To this day I'm not sure who is the better.
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Both are on my list for favorite drivers, and GV was my first favorite when I started watching F1, but I think Senna has the edge on him. To my mind, he was more of a "racecar driver who happens to be human," rather than the reverse. Definitely embodied the McQueen "racing is life" quote from "Le Mans."
 
So Rick...

I'm cut from the same philosophical cloth that you are. I believe that I am the most qualified person to watch out for my own well being. Having said that, however ...

If you are philosophically consistent in not supporting a mandated HANS (or NextGen), are you not supportive of mandated belts, cages, nets, etc.? In my case, I think I accept the latter easier than the former, just because it's what "I came up with", whereas the HANS is a "new" thing (all terms being relative).

If you want, I can grab data from Jim Downing that will show HANS' are beneficial when it comes to basel skull fracture injuries. Don't make me go get it if you are going to dismiss it out of hand, though. I think even from a skeptical "common sense" perspective, it's pretty hard to deny, like cages and belts.

I'm mostly curious on your thoughts, since I'm not entirely comfortable with mine. I would be pissed if the government told me I had to wear a HANS, but I'm OK if Conference or IMSA told me I had to in order to race, since I voluntarily choose to associate with you yahoo's. If YOUR president ;-), however, told me I had to do it, it would be about as voluntary as taxes.

Your thoughts, as always, are welcome.

Dan
#82
 
rick_bostrom said:
[snip] a whole lot of spleen-venting by Rick [/snip]
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Okay, before Rick blows a valve responding to one of my posts and/or finally crosses the line with his insulting references to me, I'm going to call time on my little experiment. All I've ever tried to do with these little "discussions" is point out some of the logical fallacies and red herrings in Rick's arguments against mandated safety devices, but the "fun" in doing so is long gone.

Full disclosure: I've never voted for one of the rule proposals that require a head-and-neck device, I hate the "nanny state" in all its vile forms, and I've felt for years that the loss of a sense of personal responsibility is one of the great failings of modern American culture.

That said, I'm with Dan in that I wouldn't rise up in open rebellion if Conference decided --in the face of decades of experience and data in all forms and levels of motorsport-- to require head-and-neck devices for all drivers. Concerns about using them are almost universally BS and/or the weak flailing of people who are against any form of change. Even with older-design HANS, for example, reduced vision and restricted egress options simply don't exist, and even those can be retrofitted with quick-release tethers if you're concerned about them.

But by all means, Rick, continue to fulminate all you want.
 
Ya know?

Lookin' at it from the POV of a guy that has considered the possibility of responding to a race car with a corpse in it...

I don't care how much money you spend or don't spend. I don't care if a rule impedes your personal freedom to pursue the happiness of this great sport of ours, or the sanction simply allows the entrants their events to ignore the use of tools that would lend to increase their own safety and chances of survival.

I don't wear one. I don't even wear a helmet most of the time. But... you should care that, if you are that entrant and you break your neck on my watch, because you are going to continue to hear explicative deletes and "I told you so" until your last conscious breath.

So just make it quick, will ya? No sense in drawing these things out. There are plenty undertakers and lawyers available, no waiting. That's why we pay for event insurance, isn't it?

BugsBunny-Bull.png
 
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Dan - I would never simply deny pretty much any safety proposal "out of hand" and I appreciate that you are attempting a reasoned argument to convince me that I should wear a head and neck device - in my humble opinion that is the correct course to take. I have no problem with someone suggesting that they think wearing one is a good idea and then explaining how they cane to that conclusion. I also feel strongly that I retain my right to listen to your argument and point out where it is either 1) incorrect, or 2) correct but useless because it meets criteria that I don't think are correct or that I don't take into consideration when making my decisions. To your specific points - I have examined data on several of the head and neck devices over the years or I wouldn't be making such strong statements about making decisions about my own safety. I fully agree that all certified head and neck devices are effective at controlling harmful forces exerted on the human body in certain (very specific) conditions. If I were driving an Indy car I wouldn't be willing to get into the car without one. I think decades of Conference racing has conclusively proven that basal skull fractures do not exist statistically in our version of club racing - that is an incontrovertible fact. My personal experience includes PRACTICING to make sure I can get in and out of my race car quickly and I cannot do so as quickly with the HANS on as I can with it off - not my "opinion" but REALITY for me - the person that I am in charge of making decisions for. Our mandated fire suits in extensive safety testing provide EIGHT SECONDS of additional fire protection. Every step added or difficulty encountered exiting the car, no matter how small, takes a significant percentage of that very short and highly stressful interval. That is the only reason that I wear it MOST of the time instead of ALL of the time - it takes additional steps to get in and out of my primary race car and since the event it is designed to prevent has never fully developed in the history of Conference I logically feel it is a risk I can afford to take when time is tight. Just for the record, I really had hoped the ISAAC device would reach full acceptance because, at least for sprint racing, it had some promise in the area of quick car exit.

I'm not trying to convince ANYONE else to NOT wear head and neck protection. I strongly suggest that everyone has a responsibility to carefully assess their unique situation and determine what moderates their personal risk to an acceptable level. I'm open to discussions with those I respect about the positives and negatives of any safety gear with the caveat that at the end I will consider that advice and make a decision that fits me personally.

As for you Steve - I'm probably one of the least likely people in Conference to "blow a valve". If I have a fault among those who know me well it is that I am reliably too unemotional. I take very little emotion into account when making my decisions. The reasoning and examples I offer are straightforward and logical - if you read them and disagree it's fine for me. My expectation is that you will make your own decisions on what you should do or not do to protect your personal safety and goals. We started racing around the same time and whether we have agreed or disagreed I have always had a lot of respect for you. I am pretty disappointed that rather than address specific topics that you disagree with drawing from your racing experience or known facts, you continue to make emotional arguments and personal attacks. I don't discount emotional decisions - they work for emotional people. Unfortunately they don't work for unemotional people like me - sometimes I think my life would be a lot easier if I didn't have to over-analyze everything and could just follow the conventional wisdom, which turns out to not be based in any kind of verifiable wisdom more often than not. I have extended my efforts and opinions to help my fellow racers for years but in the end I believe that within the bounds of not infringing on the rights of others they deserve to make their own decisions. You do not want to extend that same right - you think other racers cannot be trusted to make their own decisions and want to MANDATE that they have to do what YOU think is important. On that basis, I would say that I have treated both you and everyone else with a lot more respect than you have treated me with.

One last stab at a logical argument. Statistically just have many people have died of drowning at Conference events as basal skull fractures. Head and neck devices have demonstrated through extensive testing that they can protect the human body from basal skull fractures under the proper conditions. Underwater breathing apparatus has been proven through extensive testing that they can prevent drowning under the proper conditions. Since both events have had the same incidence rate and both conditions COULD happen within the realm of imagination, should we start mandating each driver be required to wear a head and neck device AND scuba gear?
 
Some years ago, at the first race of the season at Portland, a formula car driver had a formula Mazda climb over the top of his car, briefly coming down on the top of his head. The transmission of the formula Mazda damaged the top of this drivers helmet and drove said helmet down on top of his HANS device. Said driver, who's name I cannot now remember, credits the fact that the HANS was there with preventing far worse injury. The driver did sustain a fractured vertebra in his neck. He believed that the HANS prevented his spine from being crushed up into his skull. Neck injuries are not unheard of at ICSCC races. They have happened in the past. They will happen in the future. How do I know all this? I was the one in the control tower at PIR listening to the call and sending the emergency equipment to the scene. Have there been other spinal injuries in ICSCC that a HANS has prevented or might have prevented?
 
http://www.caranddriver.com/features/the-physics-of-how-the-hans-device-saves-lives-feature

It is all about strength of materials and physics.

The HANS is designed to prevent a very specific injury that occurs when there is a rapid high g deceleration event like hitting a cement wall when every thing but your head is strapped in. They work.

However, I would point out that a more effective way of preventing basilar skull fractures is to avoid placing drivers in a situation were they are likely to occur. Simple

Proper placement of cement barriers and tire bundles, plus adequate run off zones, and/or gravel traps greatly reduce the likely hood of rapid, high g, deceleration events. I cannot speak for all the tracks that we race at, but at the ones that I do run at I really have to pick my mind to come up with a place that could result in the type of injury that the HANS is designed to prevent.
 
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