First, the harnesses should NEVER get attached to the harness bar, unless that harness bar is part of a solid structure designed to withstand impacts, like a cage, or half cage. The harness bar is strictly a guide, and the harnesses go over them, then down to the floor, where they're bolted in very securely. Angles are absolutely critical when installing harnesses. Try to get a 5 or 6 point harness too, to prevent submarining. (basically sliding out under the lap belt in a hard frontal impact). Also, be sure that your tallest driver, in the car with helmet on, is lower than the top part of the roll bar/cage. When you have a harness, and you crash, you don't bend at the waist like you normally would. You have a reasonable chance of being held upright in the seat. Even worse if you're wearing a HANS or other head/neck brace. In the event of a rollover, that could mean spinal compression or worse. As long as it has SFI certification, and is properly date stamped (belts expire in X years, X being dependent on the series you run and their tech rules/regs), it's fine. What you need to do is go find a local race shop and have them do this for you. Safety systems are NOT something you want to DIY if you have no experience or knowledge, because someone could easily get killed. And your series should have a head technical guy that is responsible for inspecting the cars and authorizing them to run. Talk to him, see if you can get him involved. If he's inspecting the car, kind of hard to fail it.
Oh. And don't trust installation instructions you find via Google. The vast majority of them are wrong. Get the installation instructions from the belt manufacturer or an experienced race shop.
Sorry I should specify. We are going to run a weld-in roll cage sold by a local race shop. We will be running a 5-point harness, maybe a 6-point, with a proper bucket seat. We want to do the cage ourselves to save some money (which shouldn't be too tough) but the harnesses done at a race shop would be prudent. Alternately, could we run the bucket and a 3 point belt?
First time visiting the board in 1.5 years and I stumble upon this cool thread. I road race motorcycle in the South West (WERA and WSMC). Last year in May I broke my clavicle in turn 9 but I finally returned to the track this year. I'm always looking for advice but feel free to hit me up if you need any advice. I actually got in to racing when I was 11 via karts and raced them, mainly 125cc shifters, for a decade. You need help with karts I'm a well of knowledge so feel free to ask.
Had our big race weekend this past weekend, called the Children's Charity Weekend. Basically, tons of corporate and personal sponsors put together a pretty good prize pool in a big race for charity. Winner gets $10k, but tradition dictates that the winner donates that back to the Children's Hospital. Excellent weekend, perfect weather. We came 2nd and 3rd, with the winner being an insanely fast 800+ HP turbo RX7 that was just an incredible piece of engineering; it looked like NASA had built it. Still, great times were had by all.
Not sure if anyone around here is still into racing, but the 55th running of the 24 Hours of Daytona is going on right now... they're about 3 hours into it so far. You can watch it streamed live from http://imsatv.imsa.com with no commercials, and I think Fox is carrying it a bit as well, but it's like football... mostly commercials with some racing sprinkled in here and there.
One thing a friend of mine and I are looking at doing is spectating at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2018. He was a friend who competed in the 24 Hours of Daytona with me for a few years, and currently runs a race car shop in Vancouver. Anyone been? Anyone interested in going?
A friend of ours went a few years ago and stayed in portable hotels made out of containers... they're basically a container set up like a small, portable hotel room, and has communal showers, catering, etc. He said it was amazing, and is the only way to go... and it wasn't that stupidly expensive. Definitely looking at going this route as opposed to camping.
2018? I will certainly give it some thought. I would agree with the way to go see the race as above. I am way too old and will not drink enough to make ground soft again. I do think Le Mans is one of those events you have to go to once if possible.
If you're into motorsports I recommend heading over to http://chassymedia.com and buy The 24 Hour War. It's Adam Carolla's 2nd racing documentary and is very good.
https://thepack.news/the-first-edition-of-worlds-kalk-one-design-race-series-was-great-fun/ I used to help the Kalk one design world champion when he was a wee lad on a pw50. Way to go kid. USA! USA! USA! His younger brother is probably the better rider and you'll probably see him on the Pro MX circuit when he gets older. He already has some big finishes under his belt. I literally help this kid learn to ride a PW without training wheels. He'd ride between me and his father and we'd help him turn around.
@Nettdata asked for some details about how I helped. These kids were tiny back when I was racing with their dad. We would take them to our practice track, which was pretty damn awesome. It was narrow compared to real tracks, but our jumps and layout was no joke. We run around get these kids back on there bikes when they crash and restart the bike. You see that all kid races, dads at every corner out there picking up any bike and any kid and starting them back up. I helped maintain every bike on our group, so I worked on the kid's PW, KTM 50, and his Cobra before I finally moved away. We all took turns plowing the track and shaping up jumps. Just kinda there for the beginning of their racing journey. Their dad will call me up every now and then and gush for hours about them, he's proud of them.
Seth, the older one that won that world championship, he spent so much time in a cast as kid it was ridiculous. His mom made him stop racing for a long time, or he would be a pro MX rider. He was fast, but would crash spectacularly, just get ragdolled and break arms and legs. The younger one just finished 8th at Lorreta Lynn's in the 12-17 class. That's all the top 12-17 riders in the country.
It's been a while since I've had anything to do with racing, but I caught parts of this weekend's 24 Hours of Daytona, and it was great. The finish this year was amazing... not F1 WTF drama ending, but super exciting. This clip is the last 5 minutes of the race, and it's hard to believe they were still bumper to bumper after 24 fucking hours of racing. Amazing finish.