The anecdotal case for arm restraints.

[dalyduo]

Watched the (dubiously titled) 2nd Annual 35th Anniversary of Formula Ford race at LRP yesterday on the hill outside of turn one. (With OLDMAN's family and friends). Great intense hard fought race. Lead group of 4, nose to tail, swapping positions most every lap. When not in traffic turning mid to low 55's. The leaders had a clean exciting finish.

There was a group of at least a half dozen mid-pack cars all bunched up on the final lap. Coming off the downhill they were so close and quick to pop at the track out rumble strip that it looked like they'd came through the downhill 3 wide. They were also running up on lapped traffic that was meandering to the finish line. With soft slicks and very low wide center of gravity those Fords dart like waterbugs anyway, but you could not have produced more desperate frantic jockying if you'd tossed a bloody stump into a pool of starving Pirhanna. (Now there's your red mist!)

Then it happened. One of the waterbugs in the middle of the mayhem popped for a pass (my left, his right) and misjudged the closing speed. His left front wheel hit the right rear of the car he was trying to pass and broke completely off. The car started to slew sideways but appeared to interlock wheels with the car next to him and immediately launched high in the air. It nosed over and began a series of dramatic fast high cartwheels the likes of which you've only seen in really bad race car movies when the romantic lead has a heart stopping crash because his car has been sabatoged by the bitter "win at all cost" rival who also covets his girlfriend. The Ford completely cleared the outside guardrail, did at least one more summersault in the grass and stopped right side up pointing toward the flag stand. The car was in no mans land between the stream and the main straight guard rail with no direct way to get to it.

Everyone's heart stopped. Cars are still flying off the downhill pushing for the finish line and two SCCA guys (one of enormous girth) run across the live race track to get to the guy. They must have started one of the wreckers by the uphill right away because it appeared well before the final racers crossed the finish line.

To everyone's relief the driver was fine. He waved to the flag stand and got himself out of the car on his own before anyone got to him. The car was so far out of reach that they left it there, to be retrieved after the last race.

I'd call it the most dramatic finish I've ever seen except that he stopped about 100 feet short of the finish line.

I don't know if he was using arm restraints or not but after witnessing that little moment I'm sure going to use mine next race.

[JonMiller]

Wow.... lucky guy. That sounds like it was pretty frightening to watch. It's alwasy scary to watch a car flip end over for what seems like forever, but it's actually a better way to crash then to hit something stationary because you dissipate all of that energy over a series of impacts rather than all at once (ala Daytona). Daytona was the first weekend that I was wearing arm restraints, and I have no idea if they actually did anything for me then, but I will continue to wear then from this point on in open wheel cars because my arms and hands came out unscathed (for the most part).

[Gerardo]

Count me in favor of arm restraints. I didn't use them for a long while, but racing Irrational National has got me back to using them again. Now, its habit. I feel weird if they're not on. Once I start driving, I don't notice them, just like the HANS.

If you ever see a slow-motion video of an open wheel car flipping, you'll certainly want the restraints. Cheap, easy to use, and you don't notice them once you start driving. Sounds like a winner to me.

[John Greist]

Arm restraints are great for keeping arms and hands from contacting things outside the car when gravity or misguided reflex leads one to keep an upside down car from landing on one. They don't do squat for hands that stay on a steering wheel about to be twirled by a tire-wheel suddenly deflected by contacting a solid object.

I wear my arm restraints all the time, but take my hands off the wheel before it contacts objects likely to deflect it. Further, after taking hands off the wheel, make sure they don't get projected forward into the spinning wheel by the sudden stop. Been there, done that, broken finger.

John

[sydude]

I'm on the bandwagon. I've been thinking of ordering one ever since GMan's incident at Sebring, but now I'm convinced. Ordered mine from WineCountry today.