Tag Archives: cost

First HANS in a Sheane Formula Vee!

13 Friday Mar 2015

Posted by in Formula Vee, Racing, Rules & Regulations

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First HANS in a Sheane Formula Vee!

Well, maybe not technically the first one ever, but the first time in this Sheane, anyway!

The MSA rules for 2015 state that all single seater drivers in cars made from the year 2000 onwards must use a frontal head restraint system, with pre-2000 cars being required to use them from 2016.

This means Glenn’s 1997 Sheane that I’ll be driving is exempt, however, after writing my previous blog about this, I decided (and my fiancée ‘told’ me!) that I’d be a fool not to be using one right from the start.

The first problem here is that these devices (which I’ll call HANS from here) come in various angles to suit seating positions – so 10 degree is for Formula One, through to 40 degrees for bolt-upright seats such as truck racing. Most single-seaters will need 20 degrees, but there’s no real way to find out which you need until you sit in the car with it on.

Secondly, compared to the 30 degree HANS used for most saloon car racing, the 20 degree kits cost at least 50% more. Whether this is pure greed (the rules to use HANS are ONLY for single-seaters), or because, as these represent a minority of racing series and smaller production runs are required, I will make no comment.

Demon Tweaks were offering an adjustable HANS for around £20 more than the 20 degree model, and as Glenn pointed out, this would mean I could use it with whatever type of car I take on track.

Delivery received, I screwed the posts in to my Koden KSC25 helmet, and attached the HANS.

You don’t have to be scared about this part. You should make sure that there is some thread locker on the screws for the posts, but mine already came with it on the screws.

The HANS attaches to your helmet by sliding the attachment onto the post, which is also spring loaded. Nice and easy, and probably something you could learn to do after putting your helmet on… I found I can put the HANS around my neck already clipped onto the helmet, and then slip the helmet on.

I don’t really know what we’d have done if we’d found it didn’t all fit in the Sheane, but luckily that wasn’t an issue.

I may have mentioned that the head rest in the car may be a little far forward for my liking, and the HANS doesn’t help here – but it’s nowhere near as intrusive as I expected it to be. You’d have to look hard at the pictures to see I’m using one, once it’s all belted up.  We may use a smaller bracket for the head rest, but were most likely going to do that even without the HANS.

You CAN feel you’re wearing the HANS when you first put it on, but you wouldn’t call it uncomfortable.  By the time you’ve adjusted your belts and pulled them tight (making sure it sits right), you’ve already forgotten you’re wearing it.

It makes absolutely no difference to sideways vision or movement, and, as you can see, the tethers are very slack when it’s all in place.  You have to lean your head pretty far forwards before you feel them do their job.

If you’re using 3″ belts, they don’t quite fit over the guides, but the safety documentation says as long as the excess belt is riding up the neck side of the device that’s perfectly ok.  We may decide to adjust the belt mountings inwards a bit more behind the seat, but I think it is workable how it is.

Other than that there are no dramas!  We’ve brought an old Sheane Formula Vee up to modern safety spec, and now I just hope that we do it justice.

And with any luck, we won’t even have to make use of the proven life-saving capabilities of a HANS device.

ARDS Test Part 2: The Go Racing Pack

01 Saturday Jun 2013

Posted by in ARDS Test, Formula Vee, Racing, Technique, Uncategorized

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ARDS Test Part 2: The Go Racing Pack

Note: This blog was first published 06 August 2012.

I’ve now got my Go Racing Pack, and am preparing to book the test!

In the pack you get a DVD of what’s expected of you for the test, which goes over lots of regulations and flags you need to know for the test, and also a fair bit of first aid.  You get the ‘Blue Book’ of all contacts/rules/regs in the motor racing world along with some quick reference sheets for flags and handling techniques, a Demon Tweaks catalogue, and the application form itself.

Next step is to book up a day at Silverstone.

I have made a few observations along the way so far:

Although bike part prices are wayyy above car ones, when you get into car racing the balance shifts.

Car helmets? Unless you buy from overseas you’re looking at £300 for a cheapo, and most double that. Or in the thousands. Compare that to a bike lid that will do the job for £100…

And the flame retardant suits themselves? More than a set of leathers! You might scrape a cheap suit for £300, but just over £1000 seems to be about right – and that’s into custom-made super-leather jobbies on a set of bike leathers!

And then you need Nomex boots, gloves, and ideally a full set of fireproof undergarments head-to-toe.

Luckily, having just called Silverstone up directly, all you need for the test is comfortable clothing (as a lot of the day is in classrooms) and they provide an open-face helmet (so you can speak to the instructors and hear them yelling at you).  The may let me use my bike helmet, so I’ll take this along as well – mainly to try and sneak a bit of camera footage out of the day!

The other thing catching my attention at the moment is:

Heel & Toe

Every racing driver uses this technique, right?

Wrong, from what I can tell! I’m trying to find out from various sources exactly how many use it, and is it just the fastest drivers, and so far results are inconclusive.

I know championship winners who never use it, fo example.

I mean, I use the bike equivalent (blipping on every downshift), so it would make sense for me to learn heel and toe. Probably not for the test, but for the future, certainly.

I’ve said before about how driving a car is a bit boring as it’s all in slow motion compared to a bike.  Maybe this will liven things up a bit for me!

I’m enjoying watching old videos of Ayrton Senna and suchlikes working the pedals.  One thing to watch for, is if you’re learning from videos of Group B rally drivers, be aware that because of the filthy great primitive turbos they used, they’d often keep the throttle wide open as they braked.  This kept the turbo in the narrow sweet range when they got back on the power.

As a slight tangent to this, I recently learned that Ari Vatanen(?) drove the Lancia Delta S4 on the Portuguese GP circuit in 1984, and clocked a time that would have put him in 6th place at that years Formula One race!  Is that a sign of how awesome those Group B cars were, or how good their drivers were?

Do you use heel and toe in the car?