aeronca65t
Great Pumpkin
Offline
OK, here’s a question that I have regarding racing-type seat belts (safety harnesses).
Our club runs Time Trial events (intended mostly for street cars). We allow cars in our Time Trial events to have ordinary 3-point OEM* seat belts (most clubs running track day events in our area do the same thing).
Lately, we’ve been getting cars that come to our TT events with “race harnesses” (instead of the OEM belts) and often, the belts are improperly installed (especially the “bling-bling’ cars).
If the car still has the OEM belts, we make the driver wear those.
If the car only has the poorly installed race belts, we try to fix them or we turn the people away.
So we’re working on dealing with this issue in the form of a new rule.
One of our guys has said that he thinks that OEM 3-point belts are better at preventing “submarining” (sliding under the belts) than a 4-point race harness. He says we should allow the 3-point OEM or insist on 5-point belts (with an anti-submarine belt). 6-point and 7-point would be OK too….but no 4-point. He cannot find any supporting data, but thinks that someone has done a test on this.
I’m not sure I agree with dis-allowing the 4-point belts. As I see it, a 4-point belt that is properly installed is just as good as a 3-point OEM belt.
Do you guys have any opinions or sources of info on this?
Note: This does not apply to our RACE classes. In wheel-to-wheel racing, we require up-to-date SFI or FIA 5-point (minimum) race harnesses.
*OEM=”Original Equipment Manufacturer”
Our club runs Time Trial events (intended mostly for street cars). We allow cars in our Time Trial events to have ordinary 3-point OEM* seat belts (most clubs running track day events in our area do the same thing).
Lately, we’ve been getting cars that come to our TT events with “race harnesses” (instead of the OEM belts) and often, the belts are improperly installed (especially the “bling-bling’ cars).
If the car still has the OEM belts, we make the driver wear those.
If the car only has the poorly installed race belts, we try to fix them or we turn the people away.
So we’re working on dealing with this issue in the form of a new rule.
One of our guys has said that he thinks that OEM 3-point belts are better at preventing “submarining” (sliding under the belts) than a 4-point race harness. He says we should allow the 3-point OEM or insist on 5-point belts (with an anti-submarine belt). 6-point and 7-point would be OK too….but no 4-point. He cannot find any supporting data, but thinks that someone has done a test on this.
I’m not sure I agree with dis-allowing the 4-point belts. As I see it, a 4-point belt that is properly installed is just as good as a 3-point OEM belt.
Do you guys have any opinions or sources of info on this?
Note: This does not apply to our RACE classes. In wheel-to-wheel racing, we require up-to-date SFI or FIA 5-point (minimum) race harnesses.
*OEM=”Original Equipment Manufacturer”