drano38
Wayne
- 1,130
- 318
This has nothing to do with high performance driving, but shows the importance of safety gear for those of us who do.
As Rick often states, anything less than a full cage, 6 point harness w/ HANS, full race suit, fire suppression, etc, is a compromise we have to consciously understand.
Last weekend I was the second person to came across a single-car accident where an SN95 Mustang went into the ditch while driving down a rural paved road.
The car went into the ditch about 20 degrees angle off the road, nose dived into the rising side of the ditch, did a 180 degree turn and came to a stop.
The airbag activated, hood came off, driver window came off, front clip and headlights off, battery flew out of car, etc.
The driver had gotten out of the vehicle and was laying down when I got there, and had a deep laceration from top of nose to hair line. Left shoulder and leg hurting but no visible injury. Luckily the cut which wasn't bleeding very bad was the worst visible injury. Don't understand how the forehead laceration happened, but doing a 180 thru the ditch can easily cause flailing and contact with all sorts of things inside a car.
Bottom line--this happened on a 55 mph road (assuming that was the car's speed). My philosophy is when Murphy shows up at a track event, nothing good can happen above 80 mph.
Did I like putting my roll bar, HANS, and harness on my credit card this summer? No, its a lot of money. But after seeing the results of a public road accident, am I even more sure it was money well spent for road course safety? Absolutely.
So I'll second Rick's posts--safety first, then performance mods. Be safe on the road and track.
As Rick often states, anything less than a full cage, 6 point harness w/ HANS, full race suit, fire suppression, etc, is a compromise we have to consciously understand.
Last weekend I was the second person to came across a single-car accident where an SN95 Mustang went into the ditch while driving down a rural paved road.
The car went into the ditch about 20 degrees angle off the road, nose dived into the rising side of the ditch, did a 180 degree turn and came to a stop.
The airbag activated, hood came off, driver window came off, front clip and headlights off, battery flew out of car, etc.
The driver had gotten out of the vehicle and was laying down when I got there, and had a deep laceration from top of nose to hair line. Left shoulder and leg hurting but no visible injury. Luckily the cut which wasn't bleeding very bad was the worst visible injury. Don't understand how the forehead laceration happened, but doing a 180 thru the ditch can easily cause flailing and contact with all sorts of things inside a car.
Bottom line--this happened on a 55 mph road (assuming that was the car's speed). My philosophy is when Murphy shows up at a track event, nothing good can happen above 80 mph.
Did I like putting my roll bar, HANS, and harness on my credit card this summer? No, its a lot of money. But after seeing the results of a public road accident, am I even more sure it was money well spent for road course safety? Absolutely.
So I'll second Rick's posts--safety first, then performance mods. Be safe on the road and track.
