• trekkor
  • trekkor
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Topic: Minimum 2" from helmet?

From the rules:

On all sides,
all drivers’ helmeted heads must be at least two inches inside the area enclosed by the cage.

This may sound dumb or nit picky, but is that measurement from the tube or the padding?


Thanks.


KT

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  • From: Sacramento
  • Registered: 2010-08-09
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Re: Minimum 2" from helmet?

Put a sheet of plywood or anything else sheet-like on the outside of the cage, sans padding - measure from the inside of the plywood to the outside of the helmet.

3 Reply by G7owl (edited by G7owl 2010-12-28 09:35 PM)

  • G7owl
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Re: Minimum 2" from helmet?

Not so sure about measuring from the outer edge of the roll-cage....if you were using 1.75inch tubing that would mean that your helmet could be as little as 0.25 inches from the metal and if you include the madatory padding in that area it is possible that your head would be bouncing off the thing the whole race.

Not being an expert, I assumed that the intent of the rule was to make sure that there was at least 2 inches of clearance between helmet and cage to allow a driver to rattle about a bit during an impact event without his head colliding with anything solid; whether the 2 inches includes padding or not is what I think Trekkor was getting at with his question.

...and I'd kinda like to know if the 2 inches includes padding or not too.

smile

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  • From: Columbia SC
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Re: Minimum 2" from helmet?

I guess he forgot to add for the size of the rollcage tubing. there should only be a couple of places where you would even have to measure it any way. maybe cut a small block of wood 2" long and use it as a guide for each driver.

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  • From: Hayward, CA
  • Registered: 2010-03-23
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Re: Minimum 2" from helmet?

G7owl wrote:

Not so sure about measuring from the outer edge of the roll-cage....if you were using 1.75inch tubing that would mean that your helmet could be as little as 0.25 inches from the metal and if you include the madatory padding in that area it is possible that your head would be bouncing off the thing the whole race.

Not being an expert, I assumed that the intent of the rule was to make sure that there was at least 2 inches of clearance between helmet and cage to allow a driver to rattle about a bit during an impact event without his head colliding with anything solid; whether the 2 inches includes padding or not is what I think Trekkor was getting at with his question.

...and I'd kinda like to know if the 2 inches includes padding or not too.

smile

The rule seems to be insuring that the drivers helmet/body is INSIDE the caged area. This does not seem to be a rule about how close the drivers helmet or other body parts can be to the roll cage. This seems to be about making sure that in a crash situation the body panels or ground will hit the roll cage first and there are 2" of gap between that panel and the drivers helmet. If the drives helmet sticks up above, beyond, the outer plane of the role cage, he/she would be in danger of getting a crushed spine in the case of a roll over. The padding does not count since it will crush.

So this means (in my interpretation), that the outer edge of the roll cage (the structural part) defines a plane, of which the driver (any part of him/her) must be 2" away (inside) from the plane.

So the plywood analogy would be correct. Imagine plywood or sheet metal that is touching the outer edge of the roll cage (no padding),  the drivers helmet must be 2" away (inside) from that plane of material.

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  • Serj
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Re: Minimum 2" from helmet?

uh, i would define the area enclosed by the cage as the open space within the inside of the rollbar tubing. don't overthink this one. get all your bodyparts, ESPECIALLY your noggin as far away from the cage as possible. if that requires extra effort, DO IT.

  • JThw8
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Re: Minimum 2" from helmet?

Serj wrote:

uh, i would define the area enclosed by the cage as the open space within the inside of the rollbar tubing. don't overthink this one. get all your bodyparts, ESPECIALLY your noggin as far away from the cage as possible. if that requires extra effort, DO IT.

^This.  Enclosed by the cage means within the inside walls of the tubing, not the outside walls.

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  • DaveH
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Re: Minimum 2" from helmet?

Has anyone gotten a ruling from Jay on this?

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  • From: Lewisville TX
  • Registered: 2010-03-28
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Re: Minimum 2" from helmet?

If it is from the inside edge of the tubing, and assuming your cage is as close to the roof as possible, that means you would need AT LEAST 3.5-3.75" between your head and the roof of the car. I suspect most of the cars that ran last year would fail this test. We do need a clarification as to how this measurement needs to be done.

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10 Reply by crazymike (edited by crazymike 2010-12-30 10:13 AM)

  • From: Sacramento
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Re: Minimum 2" from helmet?

I would assume that Lemons rules are NOT more stringent than SCCA or NASA in this regard.

so, From the SCCA GCR for 2010 section 9.4
http://cms.scca.com/documents/Club%20Fo … anuary.pdf

"The main hoop must be high enough that a straight line
drawn from the top of the main hoop to the top of the front
hoop would pass over the driver’s helmet and steering
wheel when the driver is seated in the normal driving position.
Additionally, the top of the main hoop must be at
least 2 inches above the driver’s helmet as illustrated in
figure 10." (and also figure 11)

I can't quite figure out how to capture and paste the image from the gcr, but the plywood analogy is what is shown. They draw a line from the top of one hoop to the other.

This would mean the OUTSIDE of the tubing, at the top-most or sidemost, or anywhere near the drivers' helmet...

this also means that "hunching down or ducking your head during tech will NOT get you through. Most tech inspectors will note if you send the midget through for example, too...
So. Take your Tallest driver and have them sit as it says "Normal Driving position" - with the seat belts on as if you had just been checked by the flag station - and then try to hunch UP just a tad for extra safety and to-be-sure.

  • From: Yorba Linda, CA
  • Registered: 2010-12-19
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Re: Minimum 2" from helmet?

Images..
http://home.pacbell.net/clayt/fig-10.png
http://home.pacbell.net/clayt/fig-11.png

  • m610
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Re: Minimum 2" from helmet?

Not good for us. We're big-ish guys in a little car. We've been told our car was made for tall Germans, but apparently that meant leggy-tall Germans. From pedals-to-hip the car is long, but from butt-to-head the car is short. My helmet has about 3/4" to 1" clearance to the roof's sheet metal, and the cage follows the roof very closely.

We may have to cut out the floor and lower our seat.

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  • From: Sacramento
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Re: Minimum 2" from helmet?

m610 wrote:

We may have to cut out the floor and lower our seat.

All I can say is Kirkey. hard to get lower than a flat piece of aluminum screwed to the floor...
They come in a variety of lean-back to straight-up - and widths that may fit your cage, body and car.

Add a simple track stolen from beneath a honda or toyota seat - done right it adds 1" to the off-the-deck height. (remember to make some sort of adjustable bracket for the seat-back... I have a square-tube with many holes that pins through a bracket on the seat-belt bar.)

14 Reply by m610 (edited by m610 2010-12-30 10:07 PM)

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Re: Minimum 2" from helmet?

We have a Kirkey and it slides on some very thin Opel seat sliders. We had to lean the seat back a bit to give more head room.

Edit - I'm going to check using Alan's Opel, but I doubt I had 2" between my head and the roof in a stock Opel GT.

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Re: Minimum 2" from helmet?

ouch...

  • From: Elburn, IL
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Re: Minimum 2" from helmet?

m610: Sounds like you need to get a different Kirkey.  They make different degrees of 'layback' based on your series of racing.  They aren't that expensive and can be found secondhand on sites like 4m.net and racingjunk.com

For my 'regular' race car (a UMP Open Wheel Modified) I had a 10 degree layback seat.  But you can find an 18 degree or 20 degree layback, as well.

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  • From: Sacramento
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Re: Minimum 2" from helmet?

If you have a low-angle or no angle I just picked up a 20 degree 17" econo. Would trade if need - I can run a straight-up in the VW.

  • m610
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Re: Minimum 2" from helmet?

I'll try and find out which seat we have. (John at EGR purchased and installed it for us.) I think I'll also take the car by his shop next week to get an opinion about lowering the seat. We had discussed that when EGR put the cage in for us, but we may end up doing this work ourselves. Geoff, one of the team, really seems to like it when we bring him a metal cutting/welding project.

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