Well, if they can't cut the belts, then note in the log book that new belts must be installed before the car can race again.

maybe a system similar to the one used on helmets is needed where after a big impact a patch is removed to show a void label

that looked big paul. says a lot of how well barry builds a car hope all is well with you and your nav

Wow, that is a huge hit... Glad you are both ok, though obviously feeling the effects of it for a while to come.

Not sure that I have seen a car that bent without having been rolled, etc. It does say a lot for the build of the car that after such a big hit that all are ok.

frockkkkkkk.... hope you're up an about without crotches soon.

The problem with my leg is the impact punched the bottom of my leg into the base of my knee and fractured the bone , so i have a full brace on my left leg which allows me to bend my knee 30 degrees but cannot put any weight on it untill the fracture repairs itself. The force on the clutch pedal blew the seals out of the slave cylinder. As for Scott my navigator the CT scan at hospital showed some cloudiness on 3 discs in his neck but no serious damage, He just has to be carefull with his movements for a while. You are right about Milbrodale , it hasn't been good for me in the last couple of years, I might have to change engines and drop back a class, We'll see.

I think the seatbelts need something in them that is definitive (sailing harnesses have an oveload strip, which is essentially a label, when the stitching pulls ouf of the tab its been overloaded and is no longer useable), otherwise its all too subjective, add into that mix that some of the scrutineers also run businesses selling seatbelts, and it becomes a shady issue. It cant be the scrutineers decision (unless you ban scrutineers with vested interests, but the guys in the business are often the most knowledgable), it has to be in the belt, or let people deal with it, at the end of the day, as long as its only you in the belt, it shouldnt matter, take responsibility for your own actions. That said why does my road car seatbelt never expire? it spends its entire life in the sun and is thinner webbing, but its good to go forever.

As a side note I have had some luck selling old belts on ebay, they generally recoup about half of the new cost of a belt, takes the sting out of it I guess.

The following appears in the minutes of the August meeting of the Vic State Rally Council Executive, as part of the report :

1. Safety Harnesses.
On the basis of testing conducted by the Australian Institute of Motor Sport Safety, the Board has agreed to extend the working life of a safety harness, when used in non-international competition to ten years from the date of manufacture. An announcement is in preparation, which will emphasise the existing condition that it is the responsibility of the competitor to ensure that his equipment is in good working order, and that any harness which shows visible signs of deterioration will be rejected by event scrutineers.

This is from a Rally meeting - but the "Board" I expect is the CAMS Board.

I'll let you know if I hear anything else....

The Minutes referred to by Marty are a little misleading and we should not get too excited about any of this.

The AIMSS (Australian Institute of Motor Sport Safety) had some testing conducted on the FAI type belts and there may possibly be an announcement from the CAMS Board in due course which will recommend based on this testing that the "age limit" on the FAI Belts be accepted as up to 10 years. I don't know the full extent of the recommendations and the imminent decision from the Board will result in a detailed press release giving clarification.

Whilst this may be good news for those who choose to use FAI type belts, it doesn't offer anything to those who use SFI type belts, which is predominately what we all use in off road racing.

Now, you may be asking yourselves, why did the AIMSS only test the FAI type belts and not look at the SFI type belts? The answer to that i guess is in where they got the funding to conduct the testing. The funding came from an assortment of motorsport clubs who are predominately involved in circuit racing type activities where they all use the FAI type belts.



Marty wrote:

---

The following appears in the minutes of the August meeting of the Vic State Rally Council Executive, as part of the report :

1. Safety Harnesses.
On the basis of testing conducted by the Australian Institute of Motor Sport Safety, the Board has agreed to extend the working life of a safety harness, when used in non-international competition to ten years from the date of manufacture. An announcement is in preparation, which will emphasise the existing condition that it is the responsibility of the competitor to ensure that his equipment is in good working order, and that any harness which shows visible signs of deterioration will be rejected by event scrutineers.

This is from a Rally meeting - but the "Board" I expect is the CAMS Board.

I'll let you know if I hear anything else....

---

can you get them in lever latch?

Interestingly enough Tassie, I have four sets of GForce Pro Series belts that came from Cameron at Racer, and they have BOTH SFI and FIA certification!! (they are rotary buckle however)


-- Edited by dan at 18:37, 2008-09-19

CAMS have issued a Bulletin today.

http://www.cams.com.au/bulletins/B08-105%20Schedule%20I%20-Safety%20Harnesses.pdf

I don't know how it affects you... but it's saved me a couple of hundred bucks!

Tas, I said the webbing was the same. I got the information from a company called Klippan. They make harnesses. At the time they were considering making an SFI lever-latch belt. They told me that if they went ahead with production the material would be the same as the FIA spec belts.

If a belt has an SFI & FIA tag on it why would we assume that it was good for five years & not two? All this bullshit started because SFI meant two years. The situation of duel tags requires a ruling by CAMS to say that FIA over rules SFI if both tags are present. Otherwise a scrutineer would be obliged to say that the belts are only good for two years, otherwise you would be ignoring the SFI recomendation & we couldn't do that could we?

This Media Release may give hope.

AIMSS ACHIEVES A MAJOR BENEFIT FOR CAMS COMPETITORS

A JOINT CAMS / AIMSS MEDIA RELEASE

The Australian Institute for Motor Sport Safety (AIMSS) has succeeded in achieving a major cost-cutting benefit while maintaining optimum safety levels in the area of safety harness life in Australian motor sport.

Following a recommendation by AIMSS, the Confederation of Australian Motor Sport Ltd (CAMS) Board has approved an extension of the validity of FIA racing harnesses in non-international events from five to ten years.

The amendment to CAMS regulations is effective immediately, and will ease a substantial cost burden for most CAMS competitors. Competitors in FIA international competition will still be required to comply with the five-year restriction.

At the suggestion of its National Technical Committee, earlier this year CAMS requested that AIMSS undertake a scientific study of this issue. Previous studies known to AIMSS had raised the possibility that the validity period for non-international CAMS-sanctioned competition might be extended, if justified by its new research.

AIMSS contracted Autoliv, a major FIA-approved crash and equipment test laboratory, to examine and test a wide variety of competition harnesses that could no longer be used as their validity had expired. The ages of harnesses tested ranged from six to approximately thirty years.

The results demonstrated that there was no measurable deterioration in webbing or harness component strength for many years after the end of the five-year validity period, and none within a ten-year period.

AIMSS will now arrange for the testing of harnesses complying with the American SFI specification, which are very popular among off-road competitors. Currently, the webbing for these harnesses must be renewed every two years and it is possible, although as yet unproven, that this period might also be safely extended.

AIMSS Chairman Dr Michael Henderson welcomed the approval by CAMS of the Institutes recommendation.

AIMSS is a research and educational organisation and we totally understand the cost pressures on competitors, especially at national and club level, said Dr Henderson.

Safety must be affordable, and we are joining with the FIA in further international studies of cost-benefit issues facing motor sport safety.

CAMS CEO Graham Fountain agreed that the outcome for most Australian competitors will be greatly welcomed.

This is a great outcome and cost saving for competitors across all areas of motor sport in Australia, particularly at the club level of the sport, said Fountain.

This clearly demonstrates the value of AIMSS and the commitment of CAMS to pursue improvements which result in the maintenance of a safety-first environment while providing real savings for competitors.

We are committed to continuing this approach and AIMSS is already working on protocols to extend these harness studies and use similar methodology to examine other safety regulations.

Other projects recently undertaken by AIMSS, with some soon to be reported, include the effects of carbon monoxide and heat stress, mass data processing of CAMS incident and injury reports, and a review of rollover protection requirements.

AIMSS has also recently presented several workshops on the use of head and neck restraint devices, and last year held Australias first motor sport safety seminar.

ABOUT AIMSS

The Confederation of Australian Motor Sport (CAMS) has founded the Australian Institute for Motor Sport Safety (AIMSS) to promote improvements in the safety of motor sport and the relationship between motor sport and road safety in Australia.

The Institute, which is a non-regulatory body, aims to encourage excellence across all aspects of motor sport safety through research, education, and the co-ordination of safety-related programs. Its formation provides an important step in the evolving history of safety in motor sport.

AIMSS was launched by Sir Jackie Stewart at the 2007 Australian Grand Prix, and is now accredited as a Research Partner Organisation for the FIA Institute for Motor Sport Safety.