Neck Safety Device Comparison (Page 2 of 6)

Yeah. Thats the point. I have heard about it. Circle track is big here in Ohio and I know lots of guys who run it. Many I know dislike the HANs for this very reasons.

Now is they belt tightness part of the issue there? Is it not set up well? Is there a flaw with the user and not the system? I can not be sure but I have in fact heard of this.

A few of our drivers tested/used the Leatt and they much preferred it over the HANS.  No objective data but none of them broke anything in the head/neck/shoulder area when they did take a digger.  I stopped seeing them when USAC rescinded the requirement, I never knew they didn't make it to market.  The thing always creeped me out a little, it reminded me of those neck thingies that Kevin Kline and Will Smith wore in the "Wild Wild West" remake.

A few people that ran the HANS had those "duel" type belts with a 3" should belt to hold the driver in and then a 2" belt over the top of that to hold the HANS.  Some people were okay with it and some weren't but pretty much everyone was not that comfortable when strapped in as tight as they neede to be.

I haven't watched the video but I know that belts are made to stretch and the body stretches an amazing amount.  A guy had a slow mo camera on a sprint car flip.  It was amazing to see the guy's helmet bounce off the left rear wheel, something I never would have thought physcially possible.  Which reminds me, if you crash and it's a big hit, don't re-use the belts.  They have a certain amount of stretch built into them and once they have been stretched, they won't stretch again and the next hit will be just like you are bolted straight to the car.

Well that makes sense then.  But it is true, if the belts are not tight enough (and I mean by someone other than the driver tightening them) I could totally see this scenario happening.  It does have channels for the belts but it requires them to be cinched hard.  I would question anyone who has had this type of failure to whether this is the case with them.  The fact that NASCAR has never recorded a failure of this kind says there has to be something happening differently somewhere.

There is no reason to have to disconnect your HANS in the event of a wreck.  And I definitely would not be able to do it freaking out upside down.  But it doesn't matter, it stays attached to you, not the car.

No, there is a release at either side.  And that is the whole reason it isn't sfi rated.  I have never had even a moments thought on disconnecting it, easy to do with gloves, but still, not an optimum solution. 
I like it, it works well for me, and I have never had cause to use it.  But sadly, when I get a new helmet, I will probably replace it with a HANS.  I drive with other organizations, and as I will probably start racing with them in the next few years, they will all require one that is certified.  Sadly, the sfi and HANS have been in bed for a long time, and have managed to eliminate many of the options.  So, HANS it will be.

Yeah... HANS is all about its legal dept.

I agree that our opinions will have to differ but there are a couple things that I would like to point out, some of which support your argument.

One that does not is the fact the current HANS has channels in it that are made specifically to prevent the belt from sliding.  If they are tightened properly and in the channels even 3 inch belts are not getting out of that channel.  Now as for older HANS units they may not have this channel (I don't know) but I could see that as an issue with them.

Also an important part of the HANS is that it goes over your shoulder.  You mention a typical Lemons car and the issue some have is that the Lemons car is one size fits all.  The problem?  If you have a driver, with a HANS thats too short for the seat, no matter how tight the belts are the HANS is not being supported and held down properly.  In this situation I also agree there could be a remote possibility of it slipping out.

But one thing I will say is that in my Lemons car you damn sure can get the belts tight enough, I put some of my lifelong friends out in that car (and heck I like myself too) so if there was no way to do that I would change the car.  I hope everyone else is as serious about safety, and if not they should be.

I don't have any data, but it seems to me that there are a lot more HANS devices out on the market, so it stands to reason that you'd hear more complaints.  Kinda like saying PC's suck because you heard about a couple people who had problems with them.

Got it, now I understand what you're getting after.

In that event, even without a HANS, I'd be worried that the belts would not safely restrain the driver.  I know we've done our best to make sure that our belts make minimal contact with the seat going through the shoulder harness holes.

He was talking about doing HDPE events in his street car.  (Which as was covered in this thread, wouldn't need a HANS.)

I'm probably going to be buying a HANS type device here shortly, so I really appreciate all the info in this thread.  Now if only there was a local store I could try on carbon fiber SA2010 helmets!  JEGS is in town but they only have regular SA helmets or carbon fiber MA helmets.

This is a link to a post on another forum, its unfortunately about 8 years old, however it includes responses specifically by one of the creators of the Issac device, I've linked to page 5 as thats where most of the meaty info is, however there is interesting information on every page.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/porsche- … ice-5.html

One thing I wanted to point out is "Gregg" from Issac is quick to point out a post from a racer about how he had a lasting injury from a HANS as he put it because of the abrupt stop at the end of the tethers.  Meanwhile their baseline Issac device is basically a simple pair of tethers.  No device is going to overcome physics, I don't care which device you are wearing, if you hit an immovable object head on your brain is gonna do some banging around in there.

Posted this on the other thread as well, try and read the thread with an open mind, I'm interested to see everyone's take on it.

EDIT: Just wanted to mention as well I've been searching online for a while tonight on this.  I have not found a single instance of anyone stating that their HANS or ANY other device for that matter, failed or did not protect them or someone they know or caused any additional injury other than the one mentioned in the thread above, which IMHO is questionable at best.  This is not to say it never happened, but I am just saying I didn't see anything, although I was specifically looking for HANS failures.  I own one, so I want to make sure of course what I am doing with it, is always going to be right.

So look at the pull angle on all the retention straps or shock absorbers. The only one that doesn't compress your spine is the Hans. All the others get tight and leave the momentum to yank down. Call me crazy but I don't want that in a crash. I get your body leans forward in a crash but imho not enough for me to be comfortable with the angle on them.

Also, if the Hans devices had a belt slip issue I'd hope they would have added some kind of lip to hold the belt centered by now.