Constructing a Safe Driver Environment

The sport of racing has made huge gains in providing a safer environment for drivers. In this day and age, your chances of injury or death is much less than even ten or fifteen years ago. There are a lot of individuals and companies who have contributed to this growth in safety. But are we at a point where there is not much else to do? Not if you listen to and try to understand what some in the industry are now saying.

This story is all about cockpit safety with a focus on racing seats. Drivers have been provided with a safer space to conduct their business, but we might need to do a little  more thinking in certain areas.

In the 1960’s and ‘70’s, there were no racing seat per se. A driver had to modify a current model seat that came in a production car, truck or van. I think I remember that many Cup drivers preferred a van seat because it was somewhat sturdier and easer to mount to the roll cage bars.

They could build a frame around the seat structure and build in a rib support and hip supports. These were very crude in comparison to what is available today, granted, but the seeds were being sowed and soon dedicated racing seat manufacturers would be coming on the scene.

Early seats for race car drivers consisted of fiberglass because it was easy to form and produce. These continued to be sold into the late 1980’s, but the early designs of aluminum seats were being produced and sold from the late 1970’s. These seats were buckets of sorts and did not have rear head supports or any real upper back support.

In the later 1980’s we started to see better aluminum seats with high backs to support the helmet from the rear, as well as side, rib and head supports. In addition, we were starting to see helmet nets that in reality restricted movement of the arms more than anything.

We weren’t yet seeing any work done to restrict the forward movement of the head in a frontal crash, and too many drivers were injured during frontal crashes. These were called head injuries, when they were described at all. It took a long time for anyone to really determine the cause of death in a physiological way.

When that did happen, and after some high-profile deaths, the sanctions started to require head and neck restraints to prevent sudden and extended movement of the head forward in a frontal crash. The head and neck restraints did, and still does, save many lives.

Just when we thought we had addressed every situation where a driver could be injured or killed, we started to see concussions being experienced and talked about. It’s not that they just started happening, they had been around for a long time, we just didn’t talk about them. As the NFL players started complaining about their problems with concussion, so did race car drivers. We ran a story back in the October 2012 issue about Jeff Vochaska and where we spoke of his problems with repeated and extensive concussions over the period of some thirty years.

Concussions are not necessarily caused by frontal crashes, and those that are have been basically eliminated by the head and neck restraints. These devises slow the forward motion of the head and reduce the G-forces experienced by the neck and brain. Most concussions are caused by the sudden stopping of the head, or sudden movement, both of which happen in a very short distance. Quick movement or quick stopping of high speed movement causes a spike in G-forces and that spike causes concussions.

In football, it is the collision of helmets, or helmet to ground, and in a race car it is the helmet colliding with a roll bar or other stationary object. In today’s race car with the current design of seat, that stationary object could well be the side head restraint.

This brings us to the main object of this discussion, the possibility of concussion from seat restraints. We have heard reports of drivers experiencing symptoms of concussion after racing on a rough dirt track without hitting anything or crashing the car. It was probably the repeated bouncing of the head against the head restraints that resulted in the symptoms.

Most modern racing seats that incorporate ridged side supports line the support with layers of foam of varying density. The outer layer is a softer foam and the stiffness progresses as the layers get closer to the aluminum shell. This design is supposed to slow the motion of the head in a high-speed side or angular impact, and it does.

But what if the side motion is slower but still quick enough and in enough quantity to cause sufficient G-forces to rattle the brain? Then with repeated hits, the brain complains and we end up with the symptoms of concussion.

In the days when the seats had no side head supports, or thin, aluminum ones that bent on angular impact, we didn’t hear of anyone having concussions. Could the stiffer supports be too stiff? Some are thinking they are. If these side head supports are too stiff, then what is the alternative?

All of that being said, there are other areas of safety surrounding the seat that you need to be aware of and take measures to make safe for your driver. The following list of pertinent factors in cockpit safety was provided by a safety expert, Mark Whitney, in his presentation a few years ago.

Seat Type – As I go through the pits at the race tracks I have visited, I see a variety of seat construction. The high-end seats are not the problem, the compact and street stock classes is where racers try to cut corners on things like seats and the other components of safety we will outline. And I’ve seen some doozies.

Even the cheaper seats are better than trying to customize a stock seat for racing. Just make sure the seat is strong enough, and has rib, hip and behind the head support. If it does not have side head support, then you can improvise in this area and create a bolt-on piece using scrap aluminum and foam.

In the high-end seat category, your side head restraints should be close to the helmet and according to the experts I talked to, no more than ¾” spacing on each side. If your spacing is more than that, talk to your seat manufacturer and see what you can do to close that gap. They might be able to send you thicker side material to help lessen the helmet gap.

For all seats, the width of the seat must be correct for the driver. Snug is always preferable to being loose. Do not use soft foam to take up the space when putting a smaller driver into a larger seat. In a side impact, the driver will move that distance quickly and relatively unimpeded and hit the side of the seat with a lot of force.

And finally, look at your seat and make sure that the cutouts where the seat belts and shoulder harness come across the seat are smooth and not a sharp edge that might cut the belt. Most of the better seats will have round tubing welded around any openings in the seat to prevent chafing.

Mounting The Seat – The seat should be always be mounted to the roll cage or structural member of the frame and not the floor.  The seat should be bolted to the frame work with Grade-8 bolts no less than 3/8″ diameter. Always use large diameter heavy duty flat washers and lock nuts. Try to space the bolts as far apart as possible to properly distribute the load.

When securing the back of the seat, tie it into the horizontal tubing that runs behind the seat and instead of bolting through the tubing, it is better for strength purposes to weld-on a bracket and then bolt through that. The bolts should be positioned at right angles to the seat belt to put the bolts in shear.

Mounting The Belts – One key to a driver’s safety in the cockpit has a lot to do with the quality, mounting and care of the seatbelts. Here are a few concepts to think about when buying, installing and using seat belts.

Early seat belts were made from cotton webbing.  As technology advanced it was found that nylon was a better choice for longer life and higher strength.  In the last 5-10 years polyester and combinations of materials have made their way into the market of competition seat belts.

These newer materials have been preferred because of the smaller amount of stretching compared to the average nylon stretch numbers. There are quality nylon belts on the market and the price difference between nylon and polyester is not enough to prevent you from getting the best product that will stretch less.

Always keep the belts as short as possible. Shorter belts will lessen the amount of stretch. As mentioned, all belt webbing will stretch. The amount the belt stretches is a function of the overall load placed on it and the length of the belt this load is applied to. The more the belt stretches the further the driver will move in the seat and the more likely they are to be injured.

Sternum straps can be useful if they are positioned correctly. We have had feedback from racers who swear by the use of these straps, but they cannot be placed too close to the driver’s neck. Sternum straps were developed to keep the shoulder belts closer to the middle of the chest and keep them from sliding off the shoulders, and in the present day, the head and neck restraints.

Remember, as the driver’s torso moves forward in a frontal impact, the shoulders slide on the belts and the sternum strap will move towards the neck. Proper mounting and the use of short belt lengths will help keep the belts properly on the driver’s chest if you don’t have a sternum strap.

In reference to the safe mounting of the seat belts, the SFI Foundation has an article on their web site (www.sfifoundation.com) detailing with proper belt mounting methods, angles and procedures. There are many other articles about this subject online, but be sure to visit the SFI site.

All quality belt systems will have a certification tag, usually a SFI tag. This is the manufacturer stating that the belt meets the minimum standards set forth by a certifying foundation under a certain specification.  It also has the date of manufacture and most rules signify a certain age maximum. It is commonly held that a set of belts should not be used more than two years after their date of manufacture.

Types Of Harnesses – The most basic racing seat belt system is 5-point system with two shoulder belts, two lap belts and a submarine belt.  To gain addition body control, the 5-point system can be changed by replacing the single sub belt with two belts to control the motions of each leg. This system is called the 6-point harness.

The 6-point harness system is a vast improvement in body control compared to the 5-point, but there is still another way to increase a driver’s body control.  In the typical 6-point system, the leg belts snake through a loop in the lap belt and hook into the shoulder belts.  This belt arrangement puts an odd angle on the direction of force for the tightening of the shoulder belts.

One way to keep the benefits of the leg control of the 6-points and keep the belts in an optimum alignment is to add back the single sub belt so that the shoulder belts pull against that single sub belt.  This then becomes the 7-point belt system and is offered by many manufacturers.

Head and Arm Nets – Head Nets have become a visual staple in many series of motorsports. They first appeared as an additional way to control the motion of the head and arms inside sprint cars. They were then utilized in the stock car realm for protection of the driver’s head before the advent of side support as a part of the seat.

The window net that is so common provides little protection for the head contacting the track wall in a left side impact, so the addition of a left side head net provided an extra barrier. With the advent of seat-mounted head surrounds, the need for the head net is reduced.

Even so, the head nets can reduce the injuries we see from arms flying around in a typical roll-over crash. While sprint car drivers have tethered arm restraints, stock car drivers don’t. These “head” nets have now become arm nets as such.

Conclusion – Now is the time to look over your cockpit construction for safety issues. It is never too late to make changes that will help insure the driver’s safety in the event of a crash. As we have seen and heard from other racers, even the best of parts can be problematic if not installed correctly.

Take the time and do it right. Check the age of the belts, fire extinguisher, helmet and fire suit. Check to make sure your belts are not rubbing and worn. Imagine you are being tossed around in a violent roll over and think where your arms and legs will be impacting. Trust us, they will impact something, better it be softer than hard.

Sources:

Allstar Performance
www.allstarperformance.com
269-463-8000

ButlerBuilt
www.butlerbuilt.net
800-621-7328

G-Force Racing Gear
www.gforce.com

Longacre Racing Products
www.longacreracing.com
800-423-3110

NecksGen
www.necksgen.com
619-328-0410

RaceQuip
www.racequip.com
813-642-6644

Race Day Safety
www.racedaysafety.com
770-505-0193

The Joie of Seating
www.lajoieracing.com
704-795-7474

SAE World Headquarters
www.sae.org
724-776-4841

SFI Foundation, Inc.
www.sfifoundation.com
858-451-8868

Simpson Racing
www.simpsonraceproducts.com
800-654-7223

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