like I said internet bad boy ... maybe in real life he is a likable bloke.

 

Crazy *** Stry.

 

Ahmad, I already gave you props many times ...like I said the other day, you are the only guy that has earned the right to s**t talk, all these others guys are grasping at straws and chasing their tails. I'm still gunning for you, don't get to content just yet

 

I was not enraged, like I said, I was fine, everything was my fault, the CTS driver did no wrong. I just thought it was funny how he took another pic while I was just sitting there. I was just more occupied with trying to remove my 5-point harnesses so I could get out and inspect for damage. Those things are a b!tch to remove in a hurry, I have a new found respect for race car drivers trying to get out of a burning car in a hurry with those things on.

 

It's all good bro

 

5 points aren't that hard to release and get out of.

The more important question is why are you wearing a 5 point harness in a street car on the street

 

Because that is all my car has in it...would you prefer I drive around unstrapped? Now am I going to get to hear from another expert on how I should not be wearing harnesses on the street???

 

Glad your ok and car is fine. No rightous scolding from me i've been there. I thought you knew how to drive in cold climates! LOL! Just keep it in one piece till you get to California.
Jimmy

 

Dam bro, glad you are ok.. Please take it easy we need you and yer ride here in Cali in a few weeks. Please take it easy and MERRY CHRISTMAS.

 

Jim, I expect to get flamed as I know you don't generally seem to like conflict but here is some info on harnesses. A good 5 or 6 point harness has insufficient belt stretch to be safe with wearing a HANs device. In other words, if you hit something with a harness and no HANs, your neck turns into a slinky and whips your head down hard and into your upper chest. A helmet makes this effect MUCH more pronounced and HANs will prevent this entirely.

The crappy OEM belts decelerate you much slower as they have far more stretch so your neck is not snapped nearly as hard.

Another interesting side note is that Schroth makes harnesses which include there ASM system (an impact absorber) to deal with this. The ASM system allows for controlled stretch in the shoulder harnesses and thus safer deceleration of your head and upper torso. Said ASM harness are MUCH safer for the street and can also by used on the track with a HANs.

Porsche (in Europe) fits the Schroth ASM harnesses into their street cars equipped with harness bars and Recaro buckets (the GT3 with sport seats, the GT3 RS, and the GT3 RSR). I had the factory Euro setup in my GT3 and had no complaints.

Lastly, a good harness should have a camlock that allows you to get out of it faster than a scolded ape. I can exit a car with a Schroth camlock harness much faster than with a 3 point as after I release the lock, all the belts are free and there is no chance of getting tangled in anything.

I'm not meaning to give you a lecture but it sounds like it might be worth looking into upgrading your harnesses. I am a stickler when it comes to safety equipment as we get to use ours FAR too often during races so I have seen the good, the bad, and the ugly. Whit Recaro or Racetech seats paired with Schroth harnesses, I have yet to see the ugly...knock on wood.

BTW, Glad to hear your car is okay!

 

I'm not going to flame anyone, I hear your concerns and I am aware of the pros and cons of the harnesses in a street car but unfortunatley when I converted my seats over to to the CF seats I lost the use of the factory belts (complete oversight). I lost the female section that attaches to the seat itself and the male portion that goes over the shoulder can not clear the shoulder bolsters. The seats are actually OEM Euro version Black Series and CLK DTM seats, I am not sure of the how they address this issue on the euro cars.

 

The first paragraph's explanation was exactly what happened to Dale Earnhardt at Daytona when he snapped his neck. RIP Intimidator!

The only point that wasn't addressed by your incredible/dead-on explanation was the fact that these cars have air bags which will help offset the lack of stretch in most harness set-ups in street driven vehicles(there are always exceptions, of course).

As with any 3 point OEM seatbelt apparatus, when you are in any type of significant(excessive speed/lack of driving ability) collision, you either get shot out from the top of the harness and your shoes are left by your pedals or you are stuffed into the pedal area as a whole. Many years of law enforcement experience will open your eyes to what actually happens to the driver in a substantial collision and it will blow your mind.

An easier fix for you Jim would be to wear your flat black helmet with a Hans device!


PS When it's your time it's your time. Take it as a wake up call Jim. Heed the warning!

 

Check this out and scroll to the Profi II ASM with Cam-lock:

http://www.schrothracing.com/product...m/profi-II-asm

This belt can be configured as a 5 point and is much safer than any standard harness on the street and just as safe as their other belts on the track with a HANs device. Also, disregard what it says about not being HANs compatible, when it has the crotch strap, it is FIA HANs certified in Europe. A good harness is worth the $$$$$$$$$ 100 times over.

THe euro seat is very good and while I have not looked at a Euro version, Porsche addresses this in the GT3 with spacers and some other bits to make the female buckle fit. The BS setup should be similar. But with the right harnesses (see above ), I would not necessarily want the 3-point other than for convenience.

 

Thanks for the info, I currently run the 3 inch Sparco 5-points. Are the ones you mentioned above also SFI certified? I see they are FIA and HANS but I also need SFI certification. I got kicked off of a drag strip this summer because my harnesses were only FIA not SFI, seems the crazy rednecks that run tech inspection at the drag strips don't have a clue what FIA is...lets see, I can run them in an F1 car in Monaco at 200+ mph, but not at Route 66 Raceway in Joliet, IL LOL, so I had to order up the set that is in my car currently which are FIA/HANS/SFI.

 

I drove my old 95 eclipse GSX through a telephone pole at 80mph. Mistakes happen. Glad you and your car is ok. It would be a shame to mess that thing up. As far as I'm concerned it is the nicest MB on here.

 

Jim's car is cool, but I'd take an SL65 BS or even an Sl65 over it all day ..



Car aside, these things do happen and Jim needs to count his stars and be happy. I've been there myself so no preaching at all. I'm not saying anything other than it is sweet not have a new injury among us right now.

Cars come and go, even nice ones like Jim's (because it actually is very nice).

 

Good to hear you are ok, but this is how street racing kills...

 

You will have to call them to see if they have an SFI tag. Technically FIA should override ANY level of SFI rating but some of the sanctioning bodies that have their heads up their **** don't see it that way. Our harnesses are only FIA tagged but they are formula car harnesses so they would likely never see an event that required SFI so they most likely didn't bother.

BTW, Do you use a HANs? If not, get one! My wife went 15 feet into the air last year, did a corkscrew and then went end over end 2.5 times...she was in a Racetech HANs seat, Schroth harness, and was wearing a HANs. There was nothing left of the car with even the top end of the motor shattered and holes in the hood where the cam gear cut through. She escaped with so much as a sore neck or even a headache and raced another car the next day. Without all of the gear she was wearing, it would have been a very different outcome. And if you think that accident can't happen at a HPDE or track day, you are kidding yourself. She simply got wide in a corner, got into the marbles, was sucked into the tire wall before you could say "oh sh*t" and the car went up the tires and into the air.

Sorry to preach but it seems like you are interested in both speed and safety. The more you have of the former, the more you need of the latter!

 

Speed and safety should go hand in hand, not to say I don't do some stupid stuff on the streets (like in this thread) once in a while, but for the most part I keep most of my racing and high speed driving on the race track or at least on secluded open stretches of road with minimal/no traffic . I try to minimize the risk whenever possible, my Black Series has a roll cage in it, strapped to the roll cage is a fire extinguisher so obviously safety is a huge concern of mine, probably not too many guys on this board with roll cages, extinguishers and harnesses in their MB's.

The human body, for being so delicate, is actually quite sturdy in most situations. Back when I was racing superbikes I had several "offs" at over 100mph and my fastest crash was at over 130 (back straight at Road America coming up on Canada corner), oddly enough the 130 mph crash was pretty easy, no broken bones and just some friction burns though my leathers, on another note one of my worst crashes was in one of the slowest corners on any race track, the international horseshoe at Daytona, a simple little 40mph low side knocked me unconsious, I did not know where I was, the crash was during qualifiying and I kept asking my team mate how I did in the race in addition to knocking myself silly I broke my wrist, hand and dislocated my shoulder in that same accident

 

Saftey Dudes,
Just a FWIW, in Kali..forn.ya (Arnold's pronounciation) if you remove your factory DOT belts and replace them with harnesses, (any type FIA, Hans solo, SFI,) and you're caught by the CHP they will do the following. a. write you a ticket, b. impound your vehicle on the spot. Several zealous CHP types have done this to our local porsche club who drive their street/track cars to the event. So, if you go with harness on your street car in Kali..forn.ya, got to keep the three point clicker.

I know what your thinking how do they know? Easy, when they see 10 porsche driving on the only road to the track and the drivers have red/blue/yellow harnesses on (nobody uses black anymore) bingo and the conversation goes like this.

CHP Officer: License, registration and insurance card? (He's checking your attitude) If it's a female cope do not ask for her phone number.

Driver: Be contrite, and humble while producing the douments. There will be several seconds of silence...do not speak yet. He's testing you.

Officer: The reason I stopped you was becasue you were not wearing your seat belt.

Driver: Officer, (be polite but confident) I have a Sparco five point SFI rated harness
and as you can see I'm wearing a Hans devise and my Snell rated 2005 helmet.

Officer: Where are your DOT seat belts that came fromt he factory?

Driver: We'll I removed them to save weight and they looked like crap with my new harnesses installed (Wrong, do not admitt YOU removed them).
Correct response: Our club is very saftey conscious, and we've upgraded to the latest technology available.... Remember you don't want him to impound your car. You want to fight for another day. If he believes you are sincere and an honest mistake you may get a fix it ticket.

On the other hand it more likly to go like this:

Officer: License and registration.

JRCart: Did you see the plate? It's Illinois, do you know what that means Ah. That where the President of the USA is from. AND I'm also a close personal friend of the governor who's a friend of Rahm's.

CHP Officer: The reason I stopped you is a vehicle was clocked at 206mph by our scout plane and we think it's you. Step out of the car...mind if we check the trunk. You might be a bringing in undocumented workers. Also, the three point harness looks strangely like a five point harness which requires we impound your car.

JRCart: WTF...! Is this any way to treat a guest?

CHP Officer: What is the nature of your business in Kali..fon..ya?

JRCart: I'm going to Willow Springs Raceway to race Jimmy.

CHP Officer: Jimmy the felon from rennlist. Why didn't you say so.

CHP Offcier: We've been after Jimmy for a long time. We'll give you a
police escort to the track.

JrCart: So your not going to write me ticket?

CHP Officer: Will give you a warning on the 206 mph,
The people in the trunk we'll give a free college education, medical and register them to vote. But that harness set up sorry, we'll do a plea bargin after the race.

Willow Srings 1/15/09.
to be continued:
Jimmy

 

Glad you and the BS escaped relatively unscathed Bizarre its all been photographed. With TC off and patchy ice i'd have no doubt ended up the same way

 

Now that is pretty funny! And yes, they do not screw around in CA and will impound or ticket you for all sorts of mods.

I live in CO and they will write you a big fat ticket here for wearing harnesses.

 

LMAO! Glad I live in OH.

 

I realize we've all been there but I'd hate to accidently take out a civilian which a friend of mine did in his 996TT. And he is very experienced and skilled. In the end everyone was OK, but he lost a car and gained a lawsuit. Unintentional, never expected; but s**t happens, even on seemingly empty canyon roads.

I guess it's just best to save it for the track as much as we can, no matter the temptation and our assumptions of our skills. Unfortunately, this ain't Europe where at least spirited driving isn't so frowned upon. Part of the reason I own a boring DD. And keep my 993 for the good days.

A great thread to read and happy it had a happy ending.

 

Luckily, for me I live next to as much of a autobahn as the US will get. Not a lot of cars on the great river road here in IL and lots of places to go really fast. As far as the highways go, I don't mess around with them no matter what. Too much can go wrong. I get people trying to get me to race all the time. I just don't do it on the highway. I know it is hard for some of you guys though because you do not have an awesome road like i have to travel every day. So, I can understand the highway stuff. If I didn't have the river road I would probably be going really fast on the highway lol.