New rules and HANS devices

[kary]

Just a mandate to have a H&N device, which is after all, the point, use one and you will increase your chance of survival significantly if an incident occurs.

Mandate what though? What is a H&N device? I would think that from a liability point of view the club will need to mandate some specific body's certification as required on a device just as we currently do on helmets, harness belts, driving suits, gloves, etc. We provide a minimum specification for the geometries of roll bars and roll cages.....but any H&N device is ok. How does that make any sense? At the very least se need to mandate a maximum head loading for a some specific magnitude and angle of crash and all devices will need to have published results for that crash. So whether it is the SFI 38.1 spec or something else there needs to be a minimum standard to ensure some sufficient level of safety.

Absolutely let everyone choose which device fits them, physically and financially, and works with their in-car environment but make them choose from devices on the market that meet some standard.

Just my $0.02 fwiw.

Rick, I think you might be right and make a good point. The only issue I have at this point for H&N devices is the test they are using is extreme. 70G angle impacts are not the norm. Also note the sled seats in the tests. They all have head protection wings as part of the tests, do all of you have these in your cars? I think not. So what does that mean to the test results when you use them in real life? And how many of you are going to hit a wall at 150+ MPH at an angle? Better yet how many of you can actual get to 150+ MPH on a track with your cars.

You get my drift here. The tests are for the pro's, not for us weekend folk. It sems reasonable to define a minimum standard for our club use but these current tests are just unreasonable and do not translate into non-pro racing either by costs or by the driver environments.

[RickK]

I fully agree with you, Kary, that the current tests do not test real world environments for us weekend warriors. The SFI H&N test uses a 70g impact pulse which is far greater than the 55-60 g pulse used for SFI harness testing and a new proposed SFI spec for race seats is based on a 40g pulse. Other factors that come into play are the stiffness of the cars and how much energy will be absorbed by the car and transmitted directly to the occupants. SFI 38.1 tests are done based on tube framed NASCAR cars, probably stiffer then our street porsches with roll bars or cages not even connected to the suspension points.

But specifitying that a device must be able to limit head and neck loads to some specific max for some specific test should be our goal. What are those numbers? Good question and it will be difficult to find published numbers for the same impact force and angle of impact force for the various devices on the market.

As a side note, apparently NASA and BMWCCA are probably mandating H&N devices in their race series for 2006. NASA seems to be leaning towards mandating SFI 38.1 devices while BMWCCA has mandated STi 38.1 effective April 1, 06 for race series. I'm not sure if these rules apply to their DE or TT events.

BTW, these facts are based on my research from the headrestraint.org, hutchensdevice.com, NASA and BMWCCA web sites.

[CoryM]

Saw this on Rennlist, 10% off Hans Device:

I called around and finally found someone to sell us the Hans Device at a 10% discount. No need for a group buy or anything like that. Just call and tell John you are with the Porsche group. I ordered mine today!! I know the prices are not as good as the group buy but if you can't wait until the next one, this is a good option.

John Carver
Carver Fabrication and Safety Products
http://hansdealer.com/

Telephone
706-429-3101
706-265-3030

Postal address

2321 Howser mill rd
Dawsonville,ga.30534

Electronic mail
General Information: jbcarver@alltel.net
__________________

[JamesWilson]

Dave Turner Motorsports is the only authorized distributor of HANS products in San Diego (one of two in California) and will carry products IN STOCK as of noon 1/20/06....we thank you for continually supporting local businesses here in San Diego.

EDIT-- Just got off the phone with HANS, and as much as I would like to offer such a group buy discount, it falls against the distributor contract. Technically John Carver is operating outside his authorized bounds as well, but as he used to work at HANS he knows how to skirt the rules, and is being looked into continually. HANS just shut down a company in Texas TWICE for doing the same thing. HANS words, not mine, just the facts.

That being said, as always, we can bundle products together and give PCASDR discounts, and offer installation of device buttons and so forth, to give the Porsche driver's the best deal possible.

Just trying to play by the rules, and believe me there is not much room for discounts in these products , I'd love to help, believe me.

[kary]

Being a smaller player as a vendor of products I can attest that there is little margin on some of these products and HANS is no exception.

Having said that, POC recently offered a discounted pricing on a HANS device which amounted to $100 off. There are creative ways to offer discounts without breaking distributor agreements.