93 replies to this topic

[Cnj]

All of you guys advocating halo/full containment seats in cars with cramped cockpits like a Miata, ask yourself this:
"If I were to roll over my car such that the roof is now the floor (i.e., turn turtle) and the car was on fire, could I get out in time?"

Bear in mind that in our nose heavy cars, the car's points of contact with the ground will most likely be the front edge of the hood and the A-pillar and, as a result, kicking out the windshield is probably a non-option (especially if the front end of the car gets crushed down).

Be honest with yourself.

Its a fair question. If I am honest with myself I think that if my car was upside down and on fire I would have a very hard time containing my panic, unhooking my window net, releasing my harness without neck injury, not getting tangled up in harness, Hans, window net, seat and roof - and exiting before becoming a crisp. That's regardless of whether I had a full containment seat or not.

So now you be honest with yourself. How many accidents how you seen which had side impact loads? How many have you seen when the car was upside down and on fire? Not saying flipped cars on fire can't happen, just saying that side impacts are dramatically more prevalent.

CNJ

[Michael Colangelo]

.

So now you be honest with yourself. How many accidents how you seen which had side impact loads? How many have you seen when the car was upside down and on fire? Not saying flipped cars on fire can't happen, just saying that side impacts are dramatically more prevalent.

CNJ

Check this out:
http://m.youtube.com...h?v=RK561nnSiZU

That was me in the blue CRX that rolled three weeks ago. Thankfully, there was no fire, but with my helmet and HANS on and pressed against the ceiling, I could not get out with the car upside down. The CRX had a halo seat and I think the helmet or HANS was getting stuck on the halo "wing". A rescue worker had to help me unstrap my helmet so I could take it and the HANS off inside the car and then I could crawl out. If there was a fire, I'd either be dead or getting skin grafts at a hospital right now.

My new car, a Spec Miata, has a non-halo seat and will have Schroth right side nets on either side of the seat. For me, that's a good way of getting lateral head protection while allowing me a quick egress when things get bad inside the car. I've seen Grand Am cars that use this system. This car is also getting a good fire suppression system in addition to the hand-held fire extinguisher already installed. This car has a MiataCage roll cage which I think is one of the safest ones available.

In case you're interested, here's a fairly detailed write up of my experience with lessons learned:
http://www.roadracea...ead.php?t=39776

[svvs]

Mike, safecraft harnesses makes a "left side net" triangle that acts a head restraint. It has a great release mechanism....way better than the "safety solutions" right side net I have. I'm pretty sure it's the setup most of the grand am teams are using.

-Vick

[cpdenis]

To me the real culprit in this entire egress discussion is the Hans device and not the seat. I do not have a halo seat in my current car but since I've been using the Hans (about 5 years now), I find that it tends to get hooked on everything and anything. No problems in an open cockpit car. I get a chance to drive a lot different types of cars, Halo or not the Hans is always the sticking point

I'm not saying that the Hans won't help in a crash situation, you must first survive to have the chance of getting out.

Now if the door is closed and your upside down, I don't see too many people getting out, halo or not. For that matter I don't think many people can climb into an SM fully dressed hans and all with the door closed.

CP

[Michael Colangelo]

To me the real culprit in this entire egress discussion is the Hans device and not the seat. I do not have a halo seat in my current car but since I've been using the Hans (about 5 years now), I find that it tends to get hooked on everything and anything. No problems in an open cockpit car. I get a chance to drive a lot different types of cars, Halo or not the Hans is always the sticking point

I'm not saying that the Hans won't help in a crash situation, you must first survive to have the chance of getting out.

Now if the door is closed and your upside down, I don't see too many people getting out, halo or not. For that matter I don't think many people can climb into an SM fully dressed hans and all with the door closed.

CP

Good point. I would expect that the NecksGen H&N restraint (new version of the DefNder?) would do better than the HANS in this regard since it doesn't have that tall piece behind the helmet which I think is the part of the HANS that causes most clearance issues.

And I agree about most drivers not being able to squeeze through a Miata door window opening with the door jammed closed. That is just one more reason why my SM is getting a fire suppresion system. Hopefully, it knocks the fire down on the first (and only!) shot.

[Alberto]

This really is going to be driver dependent. A shorter driver with a Halo seat is going to find egress through the window challenging since the halo gets in the way. A taller driver won't be affected as much by that.

When installing a halo seat in a Miata, I think it is a must to remove the vent window. No room to sqeeze out the window with that in the way regardless of your size.

Many HNR make mobility and entry / exit challenging. I use a DefNder and I need to be careful getting in/out of the car when wearing it since it tends to get stuck on the belts first and then the halo once I untangle myself from the belts. I suppose it could also be me and how I try to leave the seat. I've been getting better the more I practice it.

Wreckerboy had some great advice in the thread that Michael linked to. Copy/paste:

Preparation is key. So is remaining calm after the merde hits the fan. For example, I had given lots of thought to getting out of the car in various scenarios and practiced a bit. When the day finally came that I had to bail (car was upside down at the bottom of the hill at LRP) all went according to plan. Almost. Because I had thought about it, I knew to slow down and think before randomly getting the fudge out in a flurry of tangled belts. I knew to brace myself against the roof before releasing the belts, and I knew to dump the ISAAC first, belts second. All went fine.

Until I realized that my legs were trapped in the car.

Looong moments went by with my stress level rising before I figured out that they were up against the bottom of the steering wheel, which I had carefully forgotten to remove. Clarity prevailed and I was able to get out of the car - even recognizing that my SCCA spec bottom mount window net was now blocking my way and that I needed to go out the passenger's side, AS PLANNED.

The only other thing I planned to do and forgot was to hit the kill switch. I was reminded of that when EV righted the car and I watched my wipers do a slow, palsied swipe across the remains of my windshield. Oops.

Since then I've changed H & N devices from the ISAAC to a Hybrid and added a radio and cool suit. The radio and cool suit connections are no brainers - if I'm bailing those are getting sacrificed. The various straps on the Hybrid are a major pain in the ass, and the most effective thing right now seems to be to hit the tethers, hope they release, and continue to bail. If that gets me hung up then Plan B is to release the chest strap that keeps the fool thing in place.

Practice, practice, practice. I don't practice the GTFO drill in my suit with radio and cool connections because I do not wish to risk tearing them, but otherwise, I try to do so at least once per race weekend. As Dave, Jake, and others have pointed out, making it muscle memory am is good.

[Michael Colangelo]

Mike, safecraft harnesses makes a "left side net" triangle that acts a head restraint. It has a great release mechanism....way better than the "safety solutions" right side net I have. I'm pretty sure it's the setup most of the grand am teams are using.

-Vick

Thanks, Vick. I'll have to check those out.

[KentCarter]

While a side net might keep your noggin relatively in place, it does nothing for the injuries caused by lack of support at the shoulder level. The ribs were never designed as structural elements, merely as stiffeners for a bellows system. The shoulder, on the other hand, is structural; capable of supporting forces well above your weight. Having broken a number of ribs in the past, I can say for certain I want nothing do with having more!

[Tom Hampton]

While a side net might keep your noggin relatively in place, it does nothing for the injuries caused by lack of support at the shoulder level. The ribs were never designed as structural elements, merely as stiffeners for a bellows system. The shoulder, on the other hand, is structural; capable of supporting forces well above your weight. Having broken a number of ribs in the past, I can say for certain I want nothing do with having more!

Likewise, on both counts! Broken ribs SUCK like nothing else. I broke rib 5 under the scapula in a street car accident a few years ago. Weeks and weeks of feeling like I couldn't breath, and sleeping in a chair.

[Cnj]

In case you're interested, here's a fairly detailed write up of my experience with lessons learned:
http://www.roadracea...ead.php?t=39776

Michael,

No wonder you have a visceral reaction to this issue. No doubt you have relived it mentally. Good write up by the way.

I have several hundred days at the track and I don't remember seeing a roll over during that time. I have seen dozens of impacts, some of them extremely hard and most of them not resulting purely in forward head motion. I have no data to prove that head restraint seats reduced or eliminated injury in some of these accidents, but it's reasonable to expect that is the case. On the other hand being upside down with a "halo" seat and Hans is likely to add to egress difficulty. A conundrum. I'm not sure that installation of properly positioned side head nets (how do you install a left side?) will reduce the entanglement challenge and the Hans (arguably the primary entanglement culprit) is not going away (nor do I want it to).

Not withstanding fire (it's my view that it's foolish to not have a fire discharge system in the car - which admittedly may only buy you a short time), I'm told that emergency crews will uniformly tell drivers of inverted cars to NOT release thier harnesses until help comes. I know a SW Div SM driver who broke his neck by releasing his harness and dropping onto his head. He recovered, but was lucky.

Let us know how you solve the challenge.

Cnj

[Brandon]

Mike, safecraft harnesses makes a "left side net" triangle that acts a head restraint. It has a great release mechanism....way better than the "safety solutions" right side net I have. I'm pretty sure it's the setup most of the grand am teams are using.

-Vick

This is what I think a few folks are debating between each other. My $.02: in lieu of a halo/containment seat (specifically due to egress concerns), a number of teams have moved to both L & R side nets which are installed correctly (middle strap at the shoulders) to perform the same function. These paired nets are in addition to the standard door window net which serve a secondary function (keeping limbs inside the cockpit).

I want to say a number of ALMS teams are using this type of configuration specifically the BMW Team RLL guys (thought I recall an interior picture in Roundel a while back).

G'night!

[cucamelsmd15]

I have a 16", too. I started with just a hammer, and the seat fit fine until I started to fit the cage. Once I put in the cage, I couldn't get the halo far enough from the cage side to allow my head to contact the left-halo before the cage. So, I went back and notched the tunnel.

Is your seat centered on the steering wheel? Because I have somewhat of a similar issue.

FWIW, this is my Ultrashield, and its a bastardization of about 3 different seats. Ultrashield did the custom work on the house.

[Tom Hampton]

Yes, my seat is dead centered and aligned with the column axis. I used a plumb bob, a straight edge, and a marker to transfer the column axis to the floor pan. Then I lined up the seat fore and aft center points with this line. I measured the widths of the seat and notched the tunnel to leave 1" or so of clearance in the front and about 2" in the rear. You need to leave enough room for you seat harness buckles and hardware. I did lots of measuring, test fitting, and sitting in the seat to make sure it was going to work out.

I did this while installing the cage so I could adjust any bars before they were finish welded into place. I played with the cage sidebar placement alot in order to maximize head clearance. It's all about balancing act.

I spent some time on the phone with dave Wheeler, too... Since I bought his cage.

[dstevens]

I did this while installing the cage so I could adjust any bars before they were finish welded into place. I played with the cage sidebar placement alot in order to maximize head clearance. It's all about balancing act.

Yep, that's the best way if you can. We also wait on the main harness bar as well. On the 00 the driver side bars were specifically bent to accomodate the seat mounting.

[KentCarter]

I'm strongly leaning toward the Racetech 9100. It's small (created for sprint cars) and well designed. It has provisions for a back-brace (which is required under the new FIA and SFI rules for 'next gen' seats) and a very small mounting footprint on the floor. I also hear it's quite comfortable.

[tLinder]

IMO, if you have a "Halo" type seat it should be required to remove the driver's vent window. It's almost impossible to get out the driver's window while wearing a HANS with a Halo seat.

[Bench Racer]

Kent, I re-looked at Jon's E prod car, but didn't take a picture. Jon modified to clear his open top side/forward diagonal. Of no value to a Spec Miata other than to show how simple modifications make things work. The stuff that supports the Halo from behind fit above the horizontal & below the main hoop. He has a nice tight package.

A Halo that Jay Lutz was talking about some time back, was going to be attached to his main hoop IIRC. Jay never followed up. NOT sugesting, only throwing the Jay's concept on the table.

[KentCarter]

According to the 2012 GCR:
"Mounting structures for racing seats may attach to the floor, cage and or center tunnel. Seat mounting points forward of the main hoop, between the center line of the car and the driver’s side door bar and rearward of the front edge of the seat bottom are not considered cage attachment points in classes with limitations on the number of attachments."

Interestingly..... NASCAR forbids mounting the seat to the car itself under the notion that should the cage become displaced from the car body, you want your seat attached to the big, strong cage where your harnesses are attached.

[MPR22]

IMO, if you have a "Halo" type seat it should be required to remove the driver's vent window. It's almost impossible to get out the driver's window while wearing a HANS with a Halo seat.

+1 as big as I am it is indeed impossible without the vent window removed.

[Jim Boemler]

Interestingly..... NASCAR forbids mounting the seat to the car itself under the notion that should the cage become displaced from the car body, you want your seat attached to the big, strong cage where your harnesses are attached.

The construction of a NASCAR car is different from ours. We have a real car, with real strength, with a cage inside it. They have a roll cage, with a car "body" (with zero strength) stuck on the outside. In addition, since their cars are much bigger, it could be several feet to reach the nearest "body" panel. Their rule makes perfect sense in their context, but not in ours.