has anyone experenced a wreck at the track in a street car while wearing a full face helmet w/ visor? I dont think there is any reason to keep the airbags active when wearing a harness. what do you guys think? should people disable their airbags @ the track? would an blown airbag break the helmet visor?

I can't comment on the airbag issue..since it has never happened to me.

day in his Evo and he and the helmet didn't suffer any harm from the airbag, other than a burn on his stomach. He was sitting pretty close to the wheel in his Evo wearing the stock belt.

I honestly can't imagine an airbag breaking the helmet visor given the size of some of the rocks I've taken full on in the visor. If you've got a harness I'd say dissabling the bag is fine if it makes your more comfortable, but I don't do so.

E7. Face Shield Penetration Test

If a face shield is provided with a full face helmet, this face shield shall be tested for penetration resistance in the following manner:

The faceshield shall be tested on the appropriate helmet, correctly deployed across the facial opening and under laboratory ambient conditions. A sharp, soft lead pellet weighing 1 +/-0.1 g with a diameter of 5.5 +/-0.1 mm and traveling at a velocity of 500 +/-20 km per hour shall strike the face shield normal to the surface. The face shield shall be tested in at least three different locations: the center line and 80 +/-5 mm to either side of the center line. The pellet must not penetrate to the interior of the helmet nor produce an indentation exceeding 2.5 mm as measured from the interior surface of the face shield.

SCCA has posted an advisory against full-face helmets in cars with airbags. Nothing to do with the visor. See the link below.<ul><li><a href="http://www.scca.com/_Filelibrary/File/AirbagAdvisory.pdf">SCCA Notice</a></li></ul>

imo, if you have a cage and harnesses, i would think that airbags would be pretty pointless...if i'm wrong on this, somebody please straighten me out....both airbags are removed from my m3...

which can prevent a basilar skull fracture when the neck hyper-extends in a frontal crash?

<img src="http://www.hansdevice.com/images/impact1.gif">

<img src="http://www.hansdevice.com/images/impact3.gif">

...do harnesses really stretch/give that much in an impact? if so, then yeah, i guess an airbag could still help &lt;shrug&gt;

1. <i>"Do harnesses really stretch/give that much in an impact?"</i>

Absolutely yes. I once saw a slow motion crash video of an open cockpit stunt plane. The pilot was doing barrel rolls starting from high speed ground level passes over the runway. As he went backwards over the top and started back down, he lost partial engine power and belly flopped hard onto the runway. The most amazing thing was that you could see the pilot bounce straight up for what looked like almost two feet before his harness pulled him back down. He did survive.

2. The benefit of a HANS device is not so much avoiding hitting the wheel, as not pulling the spinal column out of the skull during 50+g frontal crashes when all of a sudden your head "weighs" 750+ lb.

These and the earlier pics are from <a href="http://www.hansdevice.com/">HANSdevice.com</a>

............... Without HANS .................................. With HANS ...........
<img src="http://www.hansdevice.com/images/withouthans.gif"><img src="http://www.hansdevice.com/images/withhans.gif">

brand new, FIA rated harness properly installed.

BTW, my restraints need to be replaced...no good in another month..(2yrs old)

it actually is a rule when rallying, and part of the inspection.

I didnt think much of it but pulled the fuse anyway. glad I did. hit a wall head on at 30mph (miscalculated 180degree hairpin). with harnesses and a race seat you really dont budge an inch.

ever see that in-car video of the viper hitting a wall at over 100mph? the airbag goes off, and doesnt even reach the guy's face.

regards,
Liam

...although i dont race yet...before i go out (at DE's), i tighten my harness down as much as i can, which is usually uncomfortable while sitting in the paddock...once i'm underway i never notice them being tight

...i'm definitely buying a helmet restraint system before i start wheel to wheel racing, if not sooner...

60mph impact sled test the speaker comments about the amount of stretching the shoulder harness did:

<img src="http://pictureposter.allbrand.nu/pictures/NASA%20racer/NASAs%20stuff/sled%20test.jpg">

<img src="http://pictureposter.allbrand.nu/pictures/NASA%20racer/NASAs%20stuff/SLED%20TEST.gif">

and that's only 60mph?!?! Yikes.

I assume we're talking about the same video. This one is 8th from last on the list at <a href="http://www.racingflix.com/browsevideos.asp?p=3">RaceFlix</a>. The Viper can't brake for a left, crosses a sand trap, blows head-on thru a four-tire high tire wall, crosses ~30 yards of grass, and ends up in a row of trees with the instructor telling the driver to "turn the ignition off".

The airbag deploys when he hits the tire wall. I don't know how much speed the car sheds at this point, probably not much, but it certainly looks like the airbag is in the driver's face. The airbag sits limp later once the Viper comes to a stop in the trees.

<img src="http://pictureposter.audiworld.com/17157/crash.jpg">

leaving more and more space at the back of the helmet.

but I wasnt going that fast either when I hit a cement wall head on (30mph).
it didnt hurt until the day after the accident....everything was sore and I had cuts on my neck from the side of the harnesses (no harness pads).

still, 30mph is fast enough to bend an audi frame 2" and break everything that has clips in the front end

but I'd like to see it again (it's been over a year since I saw I think).

I might be mixing up memories of that video and my own crash, where my head hardly budge (I remember saying to myself "I wonder if the airbag would have reached my head")

regards,
Liam

Without a H&amp;N, your head rotates within the helmet, exposing your chin. The films I have seen show the bottom of the helmet at about the bottom of your nose in a high G crash. With a HANS, that rotation is controlled and your head stays inside the helmet.

Had to put it in terms I understand :P

<img src="http://www.beeman.com/images/pell-point3.jpg">

when a car in front of him kicked up a stone and it pierced his visor. Story is that Jackie Stewart was familiar with Lexan from Jim Hall's Chapperalls using it (Stewart raced in Can Am) and called DuPont and got them to build visors out of Lexan which began a serious effort towards nearly bullet proof visors.

The safety standards for visors keep in mind that a rock can = a bullet when "launched" by a spinning tire of a fast car.

Even hitting a stone falling straight down is a severe impact when you're driving 200 mph. If the stone is flung off a tire that's spinning at 200 mph in front of you, it's equivalent to a 580 ft/sec impact.

I digress for a short story:

My brother hit a ground squirrel at 100+ mph with the nose of his Formula Continental. The squirrel flew over his head, but it hit the driver of the following car square on his face shield. He (the driver, not the squirrel) was uninjured and continued. When he came into the pits at the end of the race, the jaws of the stewards in pit lane dropped when they saw a blood soaked driver go by. They didn't know it was "only" squirrel's blood.

<img src="http://www.pccchicago.com/images/paul/midohio/doninforumlasm.JPG">

going up the hill to (what was then) turn 4 at Laguna...this bird flew across the track and they met.

He actually went off the track and was confused for a couple of minutes...it was a hell of an impact and also a horrible mess on his helmet which scared the crap out of the poor turn workers when this guy pulls up to them with blood all over his helmet!

for small critters.

at least its not like Bathurst in Australia, one driver hit a kangaroo crossing the track!<ul><li><a href="http://www.bathurstafterdark.com/cgi-bin/GM/archives/00000159.shtml">http://www.bathurstafterdark.com/cgi-bin/GM/archives/00000159.shtml</a</li></ul>

It's a car to car and driver driving position issue, but based on your lanky frame, Phil, I'd ditch the AB for track use.

Just my opinion. I do it on our track car.

Hans is well worth the money.

Mike S