SCCA roll bar rules

I had lots of roll cage data gathered over the years concerning cage feet punch through on sedan floor pans. Mostly bolt in cages that had been welded. The " crush box" is the result .
http://www.ogren-engineering.com/patent ... tions.html

Let me say that most of the road race rollovers inpacted inverted off of the pavement. Having more than one contact point will reduce the depth of impact and lateral loading associated with dragging the car down track upside down. Simply , a nice 4 pt cage with keep the driver further from the ground most of the time.

If the driver moves enough to contact the front down tubes ,than maybe you have a driver restraint design issue .
The Pictured cage solo hoop on the above sight will bend the driver side hoop just above the door. The second hoop will fail at or near the shallow bend on the top bar, near car center.
All cages will fail at some point. Most hoop failures will also fail the base joint at the sils or floor or whatever the bottom is joined to. I now run a lower door bar fixxed to the sill and fix the seat to this bar . At the point of punching the cage out of the bottom of the car the driver may go with the cage out the floor of the car.

My involvement with all this started a long time ago.(1982 Spencer speedway) I tried to buy a Dart/Duster 318 to race at the local oval track. I could not find a Dart, so I built a Buick that I found a full sponsor for. (Art Wilberts Buick/GM parts). The pavement and the dirt track(Canandaigua) shared rules so we raced both tracks . The fastest Dart rolled hard at canadaqua and punched the cage out the bottom of the car killing the poor kid.
 
There is no excuse for a roll cage punching through the floor. That is all on poor design and construction techniques. In prod the cage should be tied into the chassis in multiple places beyond the simple floor connection plates, that cage movement independent of the body should not be an issue. If the cage isn't tied into the A-pillars, B-pillars, roof line, etc, the design needs to be re-thought. If you can stick a pry bar between the body and the cafe and flex the cage away from the body, you should re-think the design or consult someone that knows what they are doing.
 
I've known that GT may attach the cage to many locations A/B pillar, windshield and door openings but cannot find where Prod is allowed more than the 8 points in the figures.
Can you provide me with the reference?
 
Bob... Our HP Sprite went through all the "gold seal" machinations years ago and then again in '08 or whenever. Finally put in another rear hoop two weeks before they said we didn't have to. In the meantime, it seemed like every race we went to for a while our first task was to go to Tech and have it checked. Our cage has more than 20 attachments in addition to the required eight and every Tech inspector, all of whom are "National" rated in our region, praised the additional support. Car has been up side down twice with this cage (not with me in it...) and survived with only scratched paint. Somewhere in the GCR is an obscure statement about additional attachments being a good idea. I can tell you after sliding sideways, on oil, into a concrete wall at 60+ mph the additional stuff is well worth it. Absolutely no damage to the chassis or the cage. The car ran Nationally from '74 to '03 when we bought it, including continuous runoffs in the late '80s through the late '90s with no comments from anyone about the cage except that they liked it. If anyone wants a picture of the cage give me an e-mail address and I'll send a couple to you. Never figured how to get pictures on this site...

Bob
 
FIAT90FP":3t3hki02 said:
I've known that GT may attach the cage to many locations A/B pillar, windshield and door openings but cannot find where Prod is allowed more than the 8 points in the figures.
Can you provide me with the reference?
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9.4.E.

1. Improved Touring, Spec Miata, B-Spec AND Touring (excluding
T1) classes–The roll cage must attach to the vehicle structure
within the passenger compartment in a minimum of 6 points
and a maximum of 8 points as specified in these rules. ....

2. All other classes–There is no limit on cage attachment points.
The roll cage shall be integrated into the frame or chassis.

Al Seim
HP VW Scirocco
 
I have gotten some requests to list the drivers that have been hurt or knocked out impacting some part of the cage structure. So here is what I am aware of:Randy Canfield, Don Feller Ed Rubenzer, Criss Caleno ,who received a serious head injury, John Weyles , who was killed, Loren Moore, and Mike Hart , who received many different injuries that required a long recovery. The point of this is not what bar they hit or the circumstances of the impact, It is that they hit their body on something that caused the problem, so why is it a good idea to have more bars that might compound the odds of hitting the drivers head on yet more bars? And I repeat SCCA has supplied NO evidence that one of the reasons for the new cage rule , cockpit intrusion protection, is a problem. There for the change was made to improve a situation that does not currently exist while actually putting drivers in more danger to the type of injury that is proven to most likely occur. This has always seemed totally illogical to me. I have also had requests for some of the SCCA documents I have referred to, I hope to have them copied so I can E-mail them soon so If you want to see them, Email me at rickhaynes3@yahoo.com

In going through the old SCCA documents I ran crossed an 2008 Email from Bob Dowie, who was then head of the CRB, in response to my request that the CRB advise the BOD to do a new analysis on the finial SCCA bar design. He replied that he thought the new one would fail too. And yet this is the design we have today , unbelievable.

Mike, I have to take issue with your statement " If the driver moves enough to contact the front down tubes ,than maybe you have a driver restraint design issue"
Many of the small cars like bugeyes, midgets X19 ,Lotus 7 ect have such narrow cockpits that the driver side forward brace pass right next to the drivers head with little option, just look at the pictures of the cars with a SCCA bar. It could be put on with a large curve out and away from the drivers head but I don't think that is a solution to the problem, better to just get rid of it.
 
If you have a Hans or similar device and the correct seat with head side headrestraints you will not come in contact with the cage. I can't see how your head could come in contact with a bar with the current rollcage rules.
Chuck
 
Chuck

It looks like you drive a sedan?, high front and side bars, lots of room in the interior. Before you say " I can't see how"
I would make the suggestion you go sit in a bugeye or midget with the slanted driver side bar. Then look to you left and then tell me how you feel about it.
 
RICK HAYNES":2gw8rqfc said:
I would make the suggestion you go sit in a bugeye or midget with the slanted driver side bar. Then look to you left and then tell me how you feel about it.
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Do like Spec Miata-- don't look anywhere but the front windshield. :mrgreen:
 
Remember, people, that the specific rule that rick is referring to only applies to open cockpit cars with a low front hoop. The bar in question runs from within 6 in of the top of the rear hoop to within 6 inches of the top of the front hoop. It is not a bar that you can "sit below" the way the bars connecting the front and rear mains in a high hoop or closed car cage.
 
To me, promoting or mandating a roll bar design that has been proven faulty is a ticking bomb. We can banter back and forth about this but it is a very real potential problem. The lawyer of a racer that was killed in a racing accident would eat SCCA's lunch with the following simple facts. SCCA mandated a design that an independant contractor, ALTAIR, found faulty. SCCA was aware of the ALTAIR report. All you naysayers out there....stay on the issue that Rick brought up.....and show him how a roll bar design/rule, that failed SCCA's own safety standards, should continue to be mandated?
 
Bill Blust":2t7m1emi said:
To me, promoting or mandating a roll bar design that has been proven faulty is a ticking bomb. We can banter back and forth about this but it is a very real potential problem. The lawyer of a racer that was killed in a racing accident would eat SCCA's lunch with the following simple facts. SCCA mandated a design that an independant contractor, ALTAIR, found faulty. SCCA was aware of the ALTAIR report. All you naysayers out there....stay on the issue that Rick brought up.....and show him how a roll bar design/rule, that failed SCCA's own safety standards, should continue to be mandated?
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Nope, don't have a problem with SCCA issuing "some" guidelines but allowing us to build cages we see fit. However mandating a design that is marginal if not dangerous is a little irresponsible.
 
I should probably know better than to keep posting in this thread - but I can't seem to stop.

There are a few things here -

1. The old adage "be careful what you ask for lest you get it" - if there's a hue and cry that "the SCCA mandated roll cage is defective" (I'm not saying this is true)- isn't it conceivable that the SCCA's response could be to revise the spec by requiring a heavier, beefier cage? Or simply outlaw low front hoops? How is that going to play out if it happens and most or all open prod cars need new cages?

2. I think it's quite incorrect to say that the SCCA cage is "defective". All of my info is second or thirdhand, reading what was posted and listening to what has been said in the past in tent meetings. If I've followed the story correctly, the PCS used to allow a custom designed cage, as long as it met certain force loading and presumably other general criteria. Or a standard design could be used that was shown in the PCS. At some point in the evolution of things, the option to use a custom design was removed. Apparently there was an analysis done of the standard design which showed that it did not meet the loads that were once called out for the custom design.

This in itself does not mean that the standard design is defective - it only means that the custom designs were mandated to be "even stronger" than the standard design. I have no inside info at all, but it strikes me as perfectly reasonable to set a requirement that a custom design be "even stronger" than an accepted standard design. Whether that was the conscious intent or not, the fact that custom designs were required to be stronger than some standard design is in no way "proof" that the standard design is inadequate or defective. An analogy would be if your suspension had to be held on with SAE Grade 5 bolts "or any other bolts of 125,000 psi strength or better". SAE grade 5 bolts are "only" 120,000 psi, that doesn't mean they are defective or inadequate, just that someone decided to pull a larger number out of the air to regulate non SAE bolts.

3. I can certainly see why Rick is frustrated - he does not like the SCCA standard design and has his own design which he thinks is safer and which analyzes to be stronger than the standard design. I was similarly frustrated when I had to replace my ISAAC head restraint (safer than HANS IMO) but I do grudgingly undestand that risk management brings some rather arbitrary decisions. And I fear that harm/backlash rather than good can come out of threats of lawsuit, dark allegations of lying and misdeeds, and statements implying that SCCA Prod cars are inherently unsafe lawsuits waiting to happen. Heck, guys, there is a proposal on the table (the 15 class thing) that would almost certainly eliminate Prod - let's not give the BOD a strong incentive to do just that.
 
Al Seim":2lqp1nkt said:
I was similarly frustrated when I had to replace my ISAAC head restraint (safer than HANS IMO) but I do grudgingly undestand that risk management brings some rather arbitrary decisions. And I fear that harm/backlash rather than good can come out of threats of lawsuit, from the "patent holder and rule writer
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Fixed that for you.

I think we should get roll cage fabricators together with SFI and write a spec for roll cages, then we will require only certified shops to build SCCA legal roll cages. That will help everyone, right?
 
Yeah, right!
And watch the cost of a cage double along with the cost of getting the car there and back.
I'd be lucky if one was within 2 hours tow.
 
Rick, Is it legal to drop the DS bar to the door top and run a Petty bar for support?
Sorry Rick, I was not aware of the low hoop side bar rule. Maybe we were harassing you with misinformation.
The best way to reduce driver to bar interface IMHO is to either increase the bar gap to out of range distance, or reduce it so that the bar makes up one side of the head box. You would want a head cage to reduce helmet side play to very little ALA Formula car style.
Put a letter in for ; "Please allow low DS bar in conjunction with Petty bar for low front hoop cars."

Safer, just as strong or stronger, IMHO. MM
 
Al
We clearly see the world differently, and I never have been as subservient to power as you have repeatedly advised. I can't imagine a subject I felt strongly about that the fear of reprisal would keep me from my opinions. Having SCCA get rid of production cars, is feeling you are under that threat really the way you want to deal with the directors of your club?

I think you give the club too much credit for thinking this through when in reality it was just one misstep after another. The CRB totally underestimated the reaction to the changes and when it went bad the CRB spent the next few years trying to justify the new bar 1st with a engineering analysis. When it failed they tried to hide it, and lie about the results, and when I found the evidence it failed there own tests they just eliminated the standards. There was every expectation and effort by the CRB,BOD to get the SCCA bar to pass, and no expectation it would be so inferior to the design I was submitting. That was the whole Idea, show theirs was better and shut me up. Just didn't work out as planned. Do you really think it is a viable explanation they planned their recommended design not to meet there own standards and there for to be not as good as a alterative design? This would only be reasonable to believe if the CRB had also continued to allow the superior alt. designs. After all we all want to think SCCA has the drivers best interests at heart and this isn't just a big con job to cover up a plan gone very bad,,,,, right?

Brett,
I would not support any 3rd party or group maybe doing what SCCA has already done. Impose their own standards of safety on me. Much better we go back to what worked so well in the past and allow some independents and self determination in a drivers own safety.......... And eliminate the liability problem to the club as well. Because if a driver gets hurt in a prod car next year at Daytona, a track that has the potential and reputation for killing drivers , make no mistake there will be a law suit.
 
RICK HAYNES":2nera3y9 said:
Brett,
I would not support any 3rd party or group maybe doing what SCCA has already done. Impose their own standards of safety on me. Much better we go back to what worked so well in the past and allow some independents and self determination in a drivers own safety.......... And eliminate the liability problem to the club as well. Because if a driver gets hurt in a prod car next year at Daytona, a track that has the potential and reputation for killing drivers , make no mistake there will be a law suit.
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Too bad there is no sarcasm font. I wasn't being serious. I was however poking at Hans who wrote the standard that negates any competitor's products. Of course if I as a cage builder could get with SFI and get a standard written for roll cage design that precludes my competitors that would be great for business. (its not happening and I don't believe in a monopoly,(unless it is my company of course :twisted: ))


rithieandefr914.gif

Not sure why this design with some back braces wasn't accepted. This design is stronger and still allows driver egress should the car end up on its roof.

One thing that it seems to have fallen by the wayside. SCCA isn't homologating any new convertibles for competition so this discussion only applies to certain older cars. How many "new" old convertibles are waiting to be built?
 
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