Survive this? Wear this!
BY SHANNON SHELTON
FREE PRESS SPORTS WRITER
June 15, 2006
His brakes were gone, leaving Jeff Gordon powerless as his No. 24 Chevrolet careened off the track into the infield grass, only to hurtle upward at full speed into the wall at Turn 1 last Sunday at Pocono International Raceway.
A few tense moments passed before Gordon climbed out of the wreckage under his own power after the driver's side of his vehicle hit the barrier. He ended up with little more than a bad headache and frazzled nerves, despite calling the crash one of the "hardest hits" of his career.
"Between the soft wall and the seat and the safety device, I never got knocked out and I was surprised that I feel pretty good," Gordon said at the time.
Watching the replays of Gordon's accident, retired Michigan State professor Robert Hubbard couldn't help but feel a sense of gratification. Each life saved continues to prove that the decades he devoted to the development and marketing of the Head and-Neck Support, or HANS, device, was time well spent.
"Thinking that this thing could really work made me a believer and a fanatic about it," Hubbard said. "It's a dream come true. Sure it's a successful business for us, but the most important part is that we're helping people out."
As an acronym, HANS has become part of racing vernacular, particularly in NASCAR, which required the use of one of two restraints (HANS and Hutchens) after a deadly period in the early 2000s, one that culminated with the loss of racing legend Dale Earnhardt at the end of the Daytona 500 in 2001.
All of the drivers in the Nextel Cup 3M Performance 400 and the Craftsman Truck Series Con-Way Freight 200 this weekend at Michigan International Speedway will be using a HANS device. In 2005, NASCAR ruled it was the only device that met performance standards.
Five years after Earnhardt's death, the HANS device and other NASCAR safety measures have earned a new measure of recognition. Since his crash, no NASCAR drivers have been killed on the track.
"The idea that this could work kept us going in the mid-'90s, but it was pretty discouraging at times," Hubbard said. "It was very frustrating to see drivers killed and there was a growing awareness in racing that something could be done."
Born out of tragedy
The HANS device is shaped like a collar, fitting around the driver's neck with a yoke sitting on the shoulders. It's a light piece of equipment, weighing about two pounds, made mostly of carbon fiber. In a racecar, a shoulder harness fits over the yoke to keep the device pressed against the driver, and tethers secure the device to the driver's helmet.
From the beginning, the creation and development of the HANS device has largely been a Michigan-based effort. Hubbard, a professor of biomechanical engineering at MSU, took the knowledge he gained from designing heads for crash-test dummies for General Motors in the 1970s and combined it with a family member's interest in auto racing to develop a prototype.
Jim Downing, Hubbard's brother-in-law, was a competitive racer and came to Hubbard after the death of a friend, Patrick Jacquemart, after a crash at Mid-Ohio Raceway in Mansfield in 1981. As a racer, Downing identified the connection between the jarring motion of an unrestrained head and a restrained torso during such accidents and thought a head restraint could decrease the number of deaths.
He turned to Hubbard, who completed doctoral work on the mechanics of the skull, for help with a solution. The two would later work with John Melvin of General Motors, who helped lay the scientific foundation behind the device that would later become HANS.
Melvin, an Ann Arbor resident who serves as an adjunct professor at Wayne State's College of Engineering, had extensive experience with crash injuries. He worked at the Transportation Research Institute at Michigan and as a research engineer with General Motors' racing programs. His team at GM was the first to use in-car crash recorders to study racing injuries.
Hubbard tinkered with the device in his spare time, even constructing an early prototype in his home with his daughter using duct tape and cardboard. By 1989, Hubbard and Downing had a working device, which Wayne State professor Paul Begeman tested that year using dummies at the school's crash-testing program.
Even with the scientific evidence, marketing the HANS device proved frustrating. In 1991, Hubbard and Downing created their own operation to sell the device when established companies turned them down, starting Hubbard Downing in Atlanta, where Downing resides.
Some of the older NASCAR drivers resisted the HANS device, calling it restrictive.
"Racecar drivers, particularly at the top levels, got there through hard work and their knowledge of their car," Melvin said. "Particularly in a stock car, they can sense things through feel. If you're presented with a different package, you're reluctant to try it."
It could happen to anybody
It took the deaths of notable figures for racing circuits and drivers to consider the device more seriously.
Formula One representatives met with Hubbard, Downing and Melvin in Detroit in 1998 to discuss the HANS device four years after the death of star Ayrton Senna. Today, in addition to NASCAR, Formula One, Champ Car and Grand Am, among others, all require the use of the device.
By 2000, more NASCAR drivers willingly chose to wear a HANS, particularly after the crashes of up-and-coming drivers Kenny Irwin, Tony Roper and Adam Petty that year. Medical examiners determined that basilar skull fracture, an injury associated with violent movement of the head, caused their deaths.
Earnhardt's death followed the next season, also from basilar skull fracture. In fall 2001, NASCAR began mandating the driver restraints.
"It made them realize that this could happen to anybody," Hubbard said. "Now it's safe to say that NASCAR leads the industry in racing safety."
Since 2001, NASCAR has facilitated the installation of SAFER (Steel and Foam Energy Reduction) barriers at tracks to lessen the impact of direct hits. Improvements in seat-belt technology and car seat structure -- Melvin has been a leader in the development of the latter technology -- have also contributed to a decreased number of injuries.
Hubbard credits all of those innovations, not just his device, for the fact that NASCAR has remained death-free since 2001, and that Gordon, who might have been killed or severely injured at Pocono years ago, walked away unhurt in 2006.
"You can really affect people's lives with the products you create and the dreams you pursue," Hubbard said.
Contact SHANNON SHELTON at 313-223-3215 or
slshelton@freepress.com.
Copyright © 2006 Detroit Free Press Inc.
06-15-2006
Hans Device Article - "Survive This? Wear This!"
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