The issue isn't really going straight at 140mph, its what happens when something goes awry at 140mph. Like the car in front of me putting fluids down on the track, or spinning, or having to avoid pieces of a tire or ???
There's just less room for error and if you go off at those speeds, you're going to get hurt. Potentially fatally.
docwyte said:The issue isn't really going straight at 140mph, its what happens when something goes awry at 140mph. Like the car in front of me putting fluids down on the track, or spinning, or having to avoid pieces of a tire or ???
There's just less room for error and if you go off at those speeds, you're going to get hurt. Potentially fatally.
Exactly. Or a car behind losing the brakes and smashing into you, or any of the other myriad of things that can go wrong on the track.
I've been watching this thread for a couple of days now, and with interest because we have both ends of the spectrum: an NA Miata that is approaching full-time track status, and a ZL1 Camaro DD that will get tracked a couple times a year.
Newer performance cars are very fast. No question about that, but in addition to the hugely improved safety systems (airbags, etc.) they also have better chassis, better tires and much better stability/traction control systems than were the case even a few years ago.
Also, the average trackday driver is just out to have fun, as has been mentioned in a few posts. I have a number of friends that have some very fast, high-end cars (GT3, C7 ZO6, 911 Turbo S, etc) and none of them are serious about lap times. They go to the track to enjoy their cars in a relatively safe environment, where they won't get arrested for having fun.
I feel much the same about our ZL1... I'm not looking for absolute lap times in that car like I am with the Miata. I'm also not competing with it, just having fun. For that, I feel the stock safety equipment is adequate for the tracks we frequent. Am I going to back off a bit at Big Willow if we go there? Sure I am.
It's all a balance of risk/reward. HPDE is not W2W, or even TT racing, it's HPDE. There's always the chance that some doofus with more car than brains is going to get in over their head, but I'm not going to obsess about all the little 'what ifs' in life. Then again, I raced motorcycles for years, so I'm a lot less risk adverse than many folks.
At our local events, I've found that those who are serious about their lap times are also pretty serious about safety equipment. YMMV.
docwyte said:The issue isn't really going straight at 140mph, its what happens when something goes awry at 140mph. Like the car in front of me putting fluids down on the track, or spinning, or having to avoid pieces of a tire or ???
There's just less room for error and if you go off at those speeds, you're going to get hurt. Potentially fatally.
I still say that's better to happen on a track that has runoff and gravel pits with likely medical professionals close than to have that happen on a road with trees and phone poles as barriers and potentially innocent victims. A high performance driving event is a vastly safer place to go fast with no safety equipment than going fast on a public road.
I apologize if I’ve said this before... and maybe it belongs in “minor rant”, but this thread fits it pretty well too. I’ll try to make this the only time I do it.
A lot of this discussion is why I hate the words “safe” and “safety”, view them as meaningless, and have tried to eliminating them from my vocabulary... but not in a Mike Rowe kind of way.
These days “safe” is generally a stand in for “minimum risk”, but that does a disservice to risk assessment, and is part of the reason why we’ve gotten to the third page here, and are just getting around talking about how risk is a two-component analysis, although no ones’ been quite so explicit.
Risk is a combination of How likely a thing is to happen, and What and/or how-severe the consequences of the thing is. Lots of people like to simplify this into a 3x3 matrix: Often, sometimes, rare; minimal, moderate, severe. I think, though, that this discussion shows how confining things to those gross categories is only helpful for big picture things... and we’re a bit further down into the weeds.
So, yes, HPDE can be an avenue for people with big fast cars to go fast in a way that reduces the likely hood and severity of their having an accident on the general public. However, there’s an argument to be made that they can still go fast enough on-track so that the severity of an off exceeds the capability of the car. There’s been enough HPDE fatalities, and enough groups are moving to instructor-out models to indicate that that’s the case.
but, ymmv; this is just like {my} opinion, man; and all other standard caveats. Feel free to disagree with me. 
Getting back to the topic, and keeping in mind the OP’s post...
One of the challenges to the current HPDE environment, for those of us driving lower powered cars, is dissatisfaction with our own experience in HPDE. Which, is in some ways ‘our problem’... since it’s our reaction to the situation, and therefore ours to control. But there’s a structural aspect as well, in that most HPDE groups are ordered by skill, and there’s currently not a good way to control for car-speed type within the group... at least at the current participation and time-available levels.
Nick Comstock said:docwyte said:The issue isn't really going straight at 140mph, its what happens when something goes awry at 140mph. Like the car in front of me putting fluids down on the track, or spinning, or having to avoid pieces of a tire or ???
There's just less room for error and if you go off at those speeds, you're going to get hurt. Potentially fatally.
I still say that's better to happen on a track that has runoff and gravel pits with likely medical professionals close than to have that happen on a road with trees and phone poles as barriers and potentially innocent victims. A high performance driving event is a vastly safer place to go fast with no safety equipment than going fast on a public road.
??????
Did I miss where anyone suggested HPDE isn't safer than being an a$$ on the street?
Nick Comstock said:I still say that's better to happen on a track that has runoff and gravel pits with likely medical professionals close than to have that happen on a road with trees and phone poles as barriers and potentially innocent victims. A high performance driving event is a vastly safer place to go fast with no safety equipment than going fast on a public road.
My assumption is that people aren't doing 140mph on public roads. So no, doing 140mph on a track is still less safe than being on the street and acting like a normal, responsible driver.
Rodan, I hear ya and last year when I had my 911 on the track I was definitely leaving a LARGE margin of error for myself. However, that takes some of the fun out of it for me. That's not to say that I need to drive at 10/10 or 11/10's but I do enjoy pushing the car and playing with slip angle. At the speeds this car can attain, I'm just far more comfortable doing that at an auto-x.
You guys don't hang out with the ass's I have.
ShinnyGroove said:So are the shoulder belt passthroughs on the factory seats in these cars just for show, or is there a way to install a proper 6 point harness with them? I could probably get right with a six point and HANS device in a modern hardtop car with airbags etc., but if I have to rip the interior out to accomplish that I might as well just stay with the Miata.
I haven't read through this whole thread - but on this note I'd just get a Simpson HANs hybrid S, it's 3 point belt compatible.
https://simpsonraceproducts.com/hybrid/hybrid-s-3-point-belt-compatible/
To be clear a hans is much less useful when an airbag and 3 point are involved. Hans are important when using 5/6 point belts since your shoulders do not move. 3 points + airbags accomplish the same task of keeping neck fractures away.
*edit
I also see a mention of lack of sub straps in a stock street car - they're not useful in that context - once again submarining happens when you don't allow your shoulders/head to move (which is the same reason a HANs is useful in that context) - you won't submarine in a 3 point becuase your shoulders move. Seems like there's a lot of missing information as to WHY certain pieces of safety equipment exist.
Nick Comstock said:You guys don't hang out with the ass's I have.
Well I figured we were talking about this thread.
And I've been around those people before (and used to ride my sportbike like a dickhead on the street)........the last time I was around some guys like that was a "Caffeine and Gasoline" event/drive to have lunch and emjoy some twisty roads. Then the guys in the exotics started blowing past everyone on the highways and doing 135+ or whatever, in between a couple of the twisty sections.
I just filtered to the very back of the group, ditched, turned around, and went home.
In reply to z31maniac :
I am talking about this thread. I'm at work and don't have the time to connect the dots right now.
accordionfolder said:
To be clear a hans is much less useful when an airbag and 3 point are involved. Hans are important when using 5/6 point belts since your shoulder do not move. 3 points + airbags accomplish the same task of keeping neck fractures away.
*editI also see a mention of lack of sub straps in a stock street car - they're not useful in that context - once again submarining happens when you don't allow your shoulders/head to move (which is the same reason a HANs is useful in that context) - you won't submarine in a 3 point becuase your shoulders move. Seems like there's a lot of missing information as to WHY certain pieces of safety equipment exist.
This is exactly the type of information I was looking for when I created the OP. Thanks.
In reply to ShinnyGroove :
Hopefully I didn't make it sounds like they're not useful at all - a helmeted head is heavier than a normal head - so running a simpson hybrid unit isn't a bad idea. BUT it's not nearly as important as the reverse (not running a HANs w/ 5/6 harness) based on the way the human body will rotate given a three point belt in **most situations. Side curtain airbags/shin airbags/front airbags are a modern marvel and will help in most of the ways a normal human will smash their car up - even on track. Conversely when running a race seat/harness means you MUST run a HANs to be safe, base of the neck fractures are nasty business and can happen even at relatively low speeds when the body and head are not allowed to move together (i.e. 5/6 point harness). Unfortunately it's a domino effect - race seats/harness should also ALWAYS be paired with a rollbar since you've removed all your shoulder movement as well - a roof collapse means your head/neck is also collapsed (since no shoulder/head rotation is allowed).
Obviously a fully setup caged car with up to date modern safety equipment properly installed is going to be safer in most situations than the equivalent road car, but you can't prepare for everything/anything and in certain circumstances a road car that's easy to get into/out of might be the safer on a given day with a given collision. I don't mind driving/riding road cars so long as you drive within your limits. The amount of improperly installed/incomplete safety equipment is kind of scary.
That's a lot of words to say use your head and know your equipment and skills.
Reading comprehension fail - I was skimming this thread.
So the original question:
"What are the options here? Is it possible to install "real" safety with those stock seats, or do you need to rip them out and go to a full safety setup, and accept the compromises to comfort/practicality for daily driver duty?"
I give my opinion in a few parts above, but a thing to keep in mind once you start removing pieces of the OEM safety equipment it also has a domino effect - removing the thorax airbags (required when removing the seats on more modern cars)/side curtain/etc CAN in some cars throw a SRS code on dash - will the others airbags still function in the event of a crash? I wouldn't risk it at that point, so once you go that direction you're back to a full-bore track car to be "sure."
I personally like the compromise of modern street car + hybrid unit/full face helmet + common sense OR full track car - full safety equipment. Another plus/minus you get with modern cars is modern stability/traction control/ABS. Most will clammer about disabling it, but it will really save your bacon when things get crazy - something you don't get in an older track car.
In reply to accordionfolder :
That's the point I made somewhat poorly earlier, the stock systems work together and have been tested together. Race systems work as a unit and are tested together. Something in-between might be safer, but odds aren't in favor of the combination being tested as thoroughly. I view the stock seats with shoulder pass-throughs as a race inspired fashion piece more than as a practical track safety piece.
I guess it depends on which OEM seat we're talking about. The OEM Porsche GT seats are full, fixed back seats with sub strap holes. So in those cases, install a rollbar and a set of 5/6 point harnesses and you're good to go. On the other cars that have the shoulder harness holes but are reclinable and don't have sub strap holes, no, I wouldn't attempt to run them with harnesses and a rollbar.
dclafleur said:I view the stock seats with shoulder pass-throughs as a race inspired fashion piece more than as a practical track safety piece.
This is really what I suspected when I wrote the OP. I was hoping to hear otherwise, but nothing in this thread has led me to believe that it's a good idea to actually use those passthroughs for anything.
In reply to docwyte :
That's true - goes back to know your equipment/setup. I was thinking chevy products as they were mentioned by the OP - I was thinking Camaro 1le, corvette. I definitely wouldn't use the passthroughs in a non-fixed back, non-inspected seat at the least. Aren't the factory fixed seats composite? Those age out in real life, but if you're rocking the OEM one ... who knows?
Integra Type-R seats had the harness pass through on them, but I've literally seen one fold in half in a mild wreck.
There's generally not much room for in-between safety setups, since so many race car and factory safety components can conflict with each other. The only combination that gives the best of both worlds is a full race car safety setup that also has a 3pt belt and cage bars a safe distance from your head (and ideally retains some airbags), so you can just buckle up the 3pt on the street. You still have to squeeze in past cage bars and then wedge yourself into a race seat so it's not exactly factory comfort. Other than that, all you can do is add a hybrid HANS setup and a seatbelt locking clip/CG-lock to a factory car for a little extra safety.
ShinnyGroove said:dclafleur said:I view the stock seats with shoulder pass-throughs as a race inspired fashion piece more than as a practical track safety piece.
This is really what I suspected when I wrote the OP. I was hoping to hear otherwise, but nothing in this thread has led me to believe that it's a good idea to actually use those passthroughs for anything.
They're great for the Schroth four point things in autocross. At least in my opinion. Of course we can start a whole other thread about safety in autocross if we want to run around in more circles with our hair on fire.
The Schroth 4 point quick fits are good for what they are. I'd have no issue running them on an auto-x and I have used them in previous cars on the track. My local track specifically bans all 4 point harnesses, so they're a no go. PCA (who I usually run with) also bans them, with the exception of specific cars. I'm not sure how they came to choose the cars that are ok or not...
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