Time to write those letters - Head and Neck Restraints

[dickita15]

Even if I do continue with SCCA, I will say this whole deal has seriously changed my attitude toward the club. I sincerely feel at this point that the folks in charge could give a shit what we the members think or want; consequently I've adopted a similar attitude about the club. I will continue to work events, but only because I work with people who I consider friends and enjoy working with, not because I feel any loyalty or obligation to the club.

First let me be clear, I was not in favor of this requirement and I was vocal in arguing against H&Ns being mandatory, however every director who voted in favor did so because they honestly believe that was the best decision for the good of the club, you may disagree, but do not for a minute believe their votes were not in the best interest of the club.
As far as going against the membership’s desire, there was very few letters written objecting to the change, maybe 12 or 15. Hell, there have been more letters about Formula B shifters or S2 transmissions.

[Z3_GoCar]

wow...wild reading. am i wrong that bmwcca, pboc, pca, nascar, indycar, grand am, scca pro racing in addition to the hated low life nasa group require the sfi head and neck restraint?

how many racing sanctioning bodies join scca in not mandating this safety equipment?

i dont understand the kicking and screaming nature of this, but you all seem very determined.

i race with nasa and have a world challenge legal race car. ive considered doing a pca event on occasion. i have a hutchens hybrid. i have a halo racetech seat. i have a right side net. i have a coolshirt too(though its not required).

i wear my hh and use my right side net when i race at scca events and this debate has no effect on me unless rejecting the requirement then increases my fees for insurance reasons.

i am curious. how many of you would quit racing over this?

But, do you have the second left side net. I understand this is part of Continential Challenge, not neccessarily WC. As I mentioned in a previous thread BMW club has gotten Nazi like about teathers aging out, when only HANS dates teathers. And then you'd also have to go by the window/center nets aging out too.

[gran racing]

do not for a minute believe their votes were not in the best interest of the club.

I don't doubt that but have to wonder if they merely pressed the easy button - "industry standards must mean SFI". Several people I've spoken with that are not on this board have no idea this is even forthcoming. I know, that's their issue for not keeping up on things.

i am curious. how many of you would quit racing over this?

I wouldn't say this in particular would be the reason, but it's another straw on the camel's back. Which reminds me, I don't think I've paid my membership and competition license fees yet. That's also a hard check to pay. It all adds up.

I have to imagine that I'll suck it up and get some other system, but it'll be one of the less expensive ones. My current safety standards will decrease as a result. Awesome.

[Cobrar05]

So, what's the grand consperacy concerning the ISAAC. All the rich NASCAR and F1 and Indycar drivers would be safer if they had an ISAAC?

I read this stuff here and my eyes glaze over. Maybe I am just sheep. Do what I am told. But Tony Stewart isn't. John Force isn't. Kyle Busch isn't. Neither is JP Montoya.
If there was an argument to be made at that level Robby Gordon would make it.

Yet, I read this forum and its like grassy knoll stuff in progress.

Is the ISAAC designer the next Preston Tucker?

[Knestis]

Search button is your friend, Rob.

It's been hashed and rehashed here for years. People largely don't get why it's a concern. I'm going to predict, by the tone and content of your last post, that you are not disposed to be any different.

I apologize for even participating in the conversation here because - DAMMIT - I really don't want to. Again.

K

[Cobrar05]

alright...there are often fresh developements. maybe the reason this whole thing doesnt bother me is that i have one of those things to comply for my other stuff.

[callard]

I'll throw some hate on HANS but for another reason. I bought my first one 10 years ago along with a carbon fiber Vudo helmet. the HANS was aroung $1000+ and was made with fiberglas. The Vudo was about $900. They weighed about equal.
When my tow vehicle burned to the ground last spring, the Vudo totally disappeared and the resin was burnt out of the HANS. The remains of the HANS now sits on a shelf in the garage weighing about 3 Ozs and continues to flake fiberglas but it maintains its original shape.
I bought a replacement Vudo and HANS with the insurance money and was pissed when I got the HANS. It's now made of molded rubber (kind of like a hockey puck) and weighs about 3 times what the helmet weighs. By eliminating the hand laid fiberglas labor and using some injection molding process they managed to cut the price - but probably not the profit. Still, it's more unwieldy and is a pain to carry around attached to the helmet. Like a fishing sinker on a paper airplane.

[jdrago1]

Guys,
You have one area director( and CRB liaison) on the site seemingly willing to work with you on this. Despite popular opinion, I am willing to work with you guys on this as well. Thats one CRB member and the CRB liaison to the BOD. I think the way to attack this is finding a way to allow the device you guys favor.
I support the mandate, I also understand your position and why some of you don't support the mandate. However, the mandate is not going away. I think if we get enough letters asking for alternative H&N's, the club will have to at least look at it. I am not making any promises, but you have my word that I will do what I can to help with this. It takes less time to submit a letter than to type a post here, so send in a letter to crbscca.com.
Jim

[pitbull113]

You heard him boys and girls let's blow up their e-mail box with letters. It can't hurt to try.

[gran racing]

I already sent mine in a long time ago. Does another letter on the same topic really help?

[pitbull113]

I already sent mine in a long time ago. Does another letter on the same topic really help?

dave what could it hurt. i sent another it took less than 5 minutes.

[DoubleXL240Z]

Z3_Go Car James, WC does require a 2nd left side net!!
So,a fully loaded driver, legally, can have:
a set of tubes going to his cool suit,
another set to his cool helmet sock,
a blower tube going to his helmet,
a radio connection,
a sippy cup straw,
a left side net,
a window net,
7 point harness,
a full containment seat,
a SFI rated H&N device,
and we are concerned over needing 2 hand to remove his Isaac?

[tom91ita]

dave what could it hurt. i sent another it took less than 5 minutes.

after a while, you would think we would learn our lessons on this.

[pitbull113]

after a while, you would think we would learn our lessons on this.

tom it would have taken less time to write another letter to the scca than it did to find that pic and post it.

[CRallo]

Guys,
You have one area director( and CRB liaison) on the site seemingly willing to work with you on this. Despite popular opinion, I am willing to work with you guys on this as well. Thats one CRB member and the CRB liaison to the BOD. I think the way to attack this is finding a way to allow the device you guys favor.
I support the mandate, I also understand your position and why some of you don't support the mandate. However, the mandate is not going away. I think if we get enough letters asking for alternative H&N's, the club will have to at least look at it. I am not making any promises, but you have my word that I will do what I can to help with this. It takes less time to submit a letter than to type a post here, so send in a letter to crbscca.com.
Jim

Z3_Go Car James, WC does require a 2nd left side net!!
So,a fully loaded driver, legally, can have:
a set of tubes going to his cool suit,
another set to his cool helmet sock,
a blower tube going to his helmet,
a radio connection,
a sippy cup straw,
a left side net,
a window net,
7 point harness,
a full containment seat,
a SFI rated H&N device,
and we are concerned over needing 2 hand to remove his Isaac?

I literally LOL'd!!!!!!!!! That kinda puts things into persepective doesn't it?

tom it would have taken less time to write another letter to the scca than it did to find that pic and post it.

nice...

[Knestis]

"Oh, gee! What-EVER will we do? We oh, so badly, want to do the right thing but golly jeepers, we just do NOT know what the members want. If ONLY ol' 103210 would write us a letter and help us understand..."

Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and the bleeding donkey.

You don't need another damned letter, Drago. If anyone who COULD make another option work WANTED to make another option work, ANOTHER OPTION WOULD WORK. On this issue, the intersection between "people who can make a difference" and "people who have any motivation to make a difference" is an empty freaking set. ZEE-RO.

I have quite literally hundreds of hours and my own money into this issue, over the past SIX YEARS, communicating through all kinds of channels about why we're in this situation, why it's a problem for racers, and what we can do about it.

Dick - is there ANY DOUBT AT ALL among the CRB what this group of members think is best for their safety? ANY...? AT ALL...?? Is Drago the only one who's been distracted for the past 72 months or so and missed that these people ELECTED to make themselves safer, before any mandate, and are now getting screwed for it?

Or - as is more likely the case - is this one more case of pretending like you give a whistling popcorn fart about our input, Jim? Particularly if it's coming from me. Best thing I could do for the cause is write in extolling the virtues of SFI, and thanking the Board for making the hard decision to stick with them. One of my least favorite things is "disingenuous" and it's one of the things you are REALLY good at.

"But, Kirk," I hear you say, "your tone isn't helpful."

Screw it. I was nice about this stuff for years. All done with that.

We somehow managed to get to a point where a long list of the things we wanted to do on the ITAC are now happening - all those things that we JUST CAN'T DO according to Mr. Drago - and the world hasn't stopped turning. It took massive upheaval and the loss of a year of productive work but GUESS WHAT...? Turns out that what nice couldn't do, upheaval did.

We are less than a year from the point at which a pretty good list of dues-paying members will, by the mandate of the Club, trade in their current H&N systems for something else THAT BASED ON TESTS FROM THE SAME TWO LABS, DO NOT PERFORM THEIR ONLY FUNCTION AS WELL AS WHAT THOSE MEMBERS CURRENTLY HAVE.

And you have NOT seen upheaval until the lawyers come knocking after one of those people is crippled or killed because of the Board's decision - and the CRB's complicity. Compared to the shit-storm that will follow that visit, I am being as sweet as pie...

...and in that spirit I will repeat it, one more time and one time only. You have an easy solution:

MANDATE THE USE OF HEAD AND NECK RESTRAINT SYSTEMS THAT MEET OR EXCEED THE PERFORMANCE STANDARD, AND ONLY THE PERFORMANCE STANDARD, DESCRIBED IN SFI 38.1, AS TESTED BY ONE OF THE TINY NUMBER OF LABS QUALIFIED TO UNDERTAKE SUCH PERFORMANCE TESTS.

Done. It's all win. You get all of the coverage of 38.1, without any of the liability you seem to be willing to take on by preventing me from keeping myself as safe as possible.

But you won't, Jim, and the Board won't.

Instead you'll trot out a bunch of waffling crap about how tech people are just too stupid to know a device that's passed such a test from something that someone built out of LEGO and drywall screws in their garden shed, absent a little farking sticker.

And maybe throw in some half-assed assertions about how we just can't trust any test results that aren't disseminated through an organization that profits - oh, sorry, "nonprofits" - from making said numbers look all fancified, like the "industry standard" that they are.

Et-bleeding-cetera.

And why...? Because the organization lacks the collective wisdom and leadership to get educated about the issue, take the time to understand the nuances of how SFI works, and actually MAKE A DECISION rather than defer it to someone who's getting rich off of our weakness and fear.

Some "risk management" weenie latched onto SFI as the water wings that he thinks will keep the Club afloat on this issue - rather than making the effort to paddle - and now everyone in the organization is a-scared to do anything but join the cluster of hangers-on... It will pop. It will sink. I just hope someone doesn't die to help you understand that.

You don't need me to fill in another freaking web form to know that a bunch of us think that one of you ought to be brave enough to start swimming.

K

[lateapex911]

Bless you Kirk, I just had to quote that.

As a guy who knows aof what much of what Kirk alludes to, yes, thanks for writing that.

"Oh, gee! What-EVER will we do? We oh, so badly, want to do the right thing but golly jeepers, we just do NOT know what the members want. If ONLY ol' 103210 would write us a letter and help us understand..."

Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and the bleeding donkey.

You don't need another damned letter, Drago. If anyone who COULD make another option work WANTED to make another option work, ANOTHER OPTION WOULD WORK. On this issue, the intersection between "people who can make a difference" and "people who have any motivation to make a difference" is an empty freaking set. ZEE-RO.

I have quite literally hundreds of hours and my own money into this issue, over the past SIX YEARS, communicating through all kinds of channels about why we're in this situation, why it's a problem for racers, and what we can do about it.

Dick - is there ANY DOUBT AT ALL among the CRB what this group of members think is best for their safety? ANY...? AT ALL...?? Is Drago the only one who's been distracted for the past 72 months or so and missed that these people ELECTED to make themselves safer, before any mandate, and are now getting screwed for it?

Or - as is more likely the case - is this one more case of pretending like you give a whistling popcorn fart about our input, Jim? Particularly if it's coming from me. Best thing I could do for the cause is write in extolling the virtues of SFI, and thanking the Board for making the hard decision to stick with them. One of my least favorite things is "disingenuous" and it's one of the things you are REALLY good at.

"But, Kirk," I hear you say, "your tone isn't helpful."

Screw it. I was nice about this stuff for years. All done with that.

We somehow managed to get to a point where a long list of the things we wanted to do on the ITAC are now happening - all those things that we JUST CAN'T DO according to Mr. Drago - and the world hasn't stopped turning. It took massive upheaval and the loss of a year of productive work but GUESS WHAT...? Turns out that what nice couldn't do, upheaval did.

We are less than a year from the point at which a pretty good list of dues-paying members will, by the mandate of the Club, trade in their current H&N systems for something else THAT BASED ON TESTS FROM THE SAME TWO LABS, DO NOT PERFORM THEIR ONLY FUNCTION AS WELL AS WHAT THOSE MEMBERS CURRENTLY HAVE.

And you have NOT seen upheaval until the lawyers come knocking after one of those people is crippled or killed because of the Board's decision - and the CRB's complicity. Compared to the shit-storm that will follow that visit, I am being as sweet as pie...

...and in that spirit I will repeat it, one more time and one time only. You have an easy solution:

MANDATE THE USE OF HEAD AND NECK RESTRAINT SYSTEMS THAT MEET OR EXCEED THE PERFORMANCE STANDARD, AND ONLY THE PERFORMANCE STANDARD, DESCRIBED IN SFI 38.1, AS TESTED BY ONE OF THE TINY NUMBER OF LABS QUALIFIED TO UNDERTAKE SUCH PERFORMANCE TESTS.

Done. It's all win. You get all of the coverage of 38.1, without any of the liability you seem to be willing to take on by preventing me from keeping myself as safe as possible.

But you won't, Jim, and the Board won't.

Instead you'll trot out a bunch of waffling crap about how tech people are just too stupid to know a device that's passed such a test from something that someone built out of LEGO and drywall screws in their garden shed, absent a little farking sticker.

And maybe throw in some half-assed assertions about how we just can't trust any test results that aren't disseminated through an organization that profits - oh, sorry, "nonprofits" - from making said numbers look all fancified, like the "industry standard" that they are.

Et-bleeding-cetera.

And why...? Because the organization lacks the collective wisdom and leadership to get educated about the issue, take the time to understand the nuances of how SFI works, and actually MAKE A DECISION rather than defer it to someone who's getting rich off of our weakness and fear.

Some "risk management" weenie latched onto SFI as the water wings that he thinks will keep the Club afloat on this issue - rather than making the effort to paddle - and now everyone in the organization is a-scared to do anything but join the cluster of hangers-on... It will pop. It will sink. I just hope someone doesn't die to help you understand that.

You don't need me to fill in another freaking web form to know that a bunch of us think that one of you ought to be brave enough to start swimming.

K

[jjjanos]

Instead you'll trot out a bunch of waffling crap about how tech people are just too stupid to know a device that's passed such a test from something that someone built out of LEGO and drywall screws in their garden shed, absent a little farking sticker.

Here's another thing to piss you off...

Like condoms, H&N systems are use ONCE. Where is the rule that requires the mandatory impound of these systems after a crash? That fancy label means squat once it is used. <sarcasm>Clearly, the club has left itself open to a huge liability here. <sarcasm>

They let someone out with a system that has been used and their fancy CYA that doesn't cover their sorry butts doesn't mean squat.

(Though I understand that most manufacturers will test a used device but the testing is almost as expensive as a new device.)

[tom91ita]

tom it would have taken less time to write another letter to the scca than it did to find that pic and post it.

i have already written three letters in the last three years and had some sidebar emails with BOD & CRB members as well as regional Comp directors.

if the BOD's attention span is so short that they don't remember the previous letters then i guess a fourth really won't help either.

I do intend to send them again in case there has been some change in the make-up of the BOD and/or CRB but i think, just like Charlie Brown, there will be no change in the outcome.

basically, i have given up hope on this issue. i think any other conclusion meets the definition of insanity.

[924Guy]

Nice scribe, Kirk. You've done a great job putting words to the frustration so many of us feel.

Sadly, I still feel like... nobody gives a rip except a lonely few of us...