We’re going to start this off with a proclamation: Yes, you should always wear a head-and-neck restraint (HNR) on track.
If you’re racing, the use of an HNR is mandatory, but that’s often not the case for HPDE / open track days in street cars. We at Competition Motorsport believe it’s time to rethink these rules.
We should probably explain the reason we believe this article needs to be written: we’re not sure why, exactly, but lately we’ve been seeing discussions about whether HPDE drivers should wear a head-and-neck restraint when on track. What’s surprising is the number of people taking a negative position — no, you don’t need one — depending on the circumstances. We’re not trying to single out, belittle or talk down to anyone here, but we find it difficult to defend that position given everything we’ve learned in the past two decades.
In one such discussion in a motorsports-dedicated group on Facebook, a driver explained five common safety setups for driving on the Nurburgring and how he felt a helmet with HNR wasn’t necessarily the best choice. It’s important to note that in TF (open track day) sessions at the Ring, the track is treated as a public road, which means you must have full visibility of your mirrors and you must be able to check your blind spot for traffic. As a result of those laws, helmets are not mandatory and head and neck restraints are actually forbidden because (according to the government) it prevents you from having full visibility of your mirrors and removes your ability to effectively check your blind spot. We disagree with this theory, but if you’re running at the Ring, you must play by their rules.
We’re not going to comment about whether we agree or disagree with one, some, or all of the opinions expressed in that video — although we think the title of the video is terribly irresponsible. Instead, it’s time to make another proclamation: We don’t know of any racetrack in the United States that will allow you to drive without a helmet, so it’s up to you to elevate your safety measures to match the situation you’re putting yourself into.
Every event we’ve driven in and every event in which we will drive in the future requires a properly rated auto helmet, so let’s examine what that means for our safety.
Given what we’ve learned about the forces at play in an impact, how those forces can cause head and neck injuries, and accounting for the mandate of a helmet when on a racetrack, do you think you’re providing yourself the best protection if you’re strapping a 3- to 5-pound helmet on your head while not using an HNR?
Very few impacts, be they on the track or the street, contain no lateral movement and even in a street-legal vehicle with airbag, it’s not uncommon for the driver to travel between the airbag(s) and A-pillar, increasing the chance of an impact to the head and, of course, furthering the travel of your neck. When you add 3 to 5 pounds of weight to your head and you’re involved in an impact, you’re asking your neck to do a job for which it is not adapted. In addition, you run the risk of a basilar skull fracture which, as many of us already know, has taken the lives of many racing drivers prior to the mandate of head and neck restraints.
If you’re not aware that traveling past/through airbags is likely, there’s plenty of proof available online to validate the claim. To illustrate, we’re going to include one such link that shows this movement particularly well in a series of crash tests.
All of these tests include lateral movement (i.e. not hitting head-on in the center of the vehicle) and the dummy either contacts or comes dangerously close to contacting something (usually the A-pillar). After watching that video and seeing the movement of the head and neck without a helmet, it shouldn’t be hard to understand why we take the position of, “Yes, you should always wear a head-and-neck restraint on track.”
So … what are the takeaways from this?
If you’re tracking a street car with a standard three-point seat belt, take a look at the range of hybrid devices available from Competition Motorsport. These devices are safe to use with a three-point belt, and if you decide to move from HPDE to Time Trials or wheel-to-wheel racing you can continue to use them with a six-point racing harness.
If you’ve already installed a four- or six-point harness in your vehicle and you’re not wearing an HNR, we’d like you to reconsider your decision. Because harnesses are designed to keep your body firmly in place in an impact, your body and head will not decelerate at the same rate. Your head will continue to move at the speed and in the direction the car was traveling until your neck forces it to decelerate. By wearing a helmet with no HNR while strapped into a properly tightened harness, you are likely to be increasing the chance of sustaining an injury.
If you’re tracking a street car with a four- or six-point harness, any of the HNR devices available at Competition Motorsport can be worn to increase your safety while on track.
From our perspective there’s only one safe choice: always wear a head-and-neck restraint on track.
As in most things in life, there are no absolutes. You don’t want to scare off a would be track driver by having them think too much about safety before they’ve even hit the track. Or the extra expense of a hybrid system. They don’t even know if it’s for them yet. There was a driver in a Prius that made himself sick and left before the day was over. You can start having them think about it from group 2 in certain cars. I’ve seen older cars in groups 1/2 that have made me cringe when it comes to safety and you couldn’t pay me to get in one of those.
I’m not a fan of HANS devices in cars that don’t have roll protection, even a hybrid. I wouldn’t put a roll bar in any car with a legitimately usable back seat. Most modern cars have multiple air bags, including side air bags, and are fine at least through group 3. But owners of older cars with no air bags, or even no side air bags, need to seriously consider roll protection and harnesses when they start getting fast, even in group 3. Group 4 is a question mark for any car. But I think TT is an area where safety needed to be discussed/analyzed but was put off or turned a blind eye to for way too long. A roll bar and properly installed 6 points should be made a requirement in TT……it’s a timed competition and the driver has taken it to the next level.