Reason for a good cage? When you second guess safety, check out this, might change your mind



http://www.motoiq.com/magazine_artic...-peak-evo.aspx

 

Among other things, I can't believe the seats stayed attached. Lucky guys.

 

i couldn't imagine being in that and surviving, amazing!

 

Happy to see they survived. I don't, however, think I like where the shoulder straps are mounted behind the driver's seat. Seems like a high risk of spinal compression with the angle like that. . . I've always been worried about the seats busting out myself...

 

That's insane

 

Glad they survived....we had a thread on this crash already...

safety safety safety

I has none so I don't put faith in nothing not tires, not my driving, and definitely not my car...

I stay to the inside of the mountains here...

 

Need my full cage and neck brace

 

Two additional braces that are required in a FIA Rally cage would have reduced or prevented Yuri's injuries. But that cage did hold up well to one of the most extreme wrecks ever filmed. And please, please take your seat selection and seat mounting as seriously as you take the cage design and install.

 

What braces would that be? I am in the process of getting my car ready for the cage, but its a road course car

interested in this:

"The spot welds connecting the floor boards to the frame rail were no match for the somersaulting Evo. We suspect the seat mount failure is due to this impact. In the next version of the cage the Recaro's mounting points will be incorporated in to the roll cage"

 

They two vertical braces in this pic...

 

That video gives me chills every time I watch it. The seats staying attached and them being able to walk away from that crash is just insane.

 

Jeremy is a good friend of mine, and I was incredibly grateful for the fact that the builders actually over-built the safety systems compared to what they were required to do by the rules.
Safety is nothing to skimp on!

 

Never seen that video. Chit is insane. To interview after that is a blessing

 

This brings up a big safety dilemma. Attaching the seat mounts to the roll cage can transfer cage impact loads into the seat. That can increase the instantaneous G loads to levels that are deadly. That's one huge reason that SCCA and other sanctioning bodies are moving away from rear seat back braces and emphasizing FIA compliant seat structures.

Side impacts also are a big concern with seats mounted to the cage structure. Modern cars have what's called a "push block" on the outboard end of the seat mounting. This block is designed to remain intact in a side impact and actually push the seat and its mounting inboard crushing the transmission tunnel. This gives 6 to 8" of additional crush zone to reduce the G loads on the seat occupant in a side impact. I would not want to be in a race car during a hard side impact that has the seats mounted to the roll cage. You give up that crush zone and transfer more G loads into the seat.

But, conversely, in a huge rollover as shown above, having the seat mounted to the roll cage has safety advantages. As a cage builder, what do you build for? That's the quandary.

IMHO, you build for the most common impact type (front, then rear, then side) and then add some reinforcement for the extreme, one in a million wreck. I think the safety structures as designed and fabricated worked in the above wreck - which was a one in a million event. I would not make the big step to move the seat mounts to the cage. I think the two FIA braces in the pic above would have gone a long to to keep the car's B-pillar and floor intact.