Gear Talk: HANS Users Beware

[Tireman]

I received the following email from Bob Zecca from Driving Impressions (TeamDI). I asked him to post it here but he's having trouble accessing the site and asked me to post it for him.

Viz



Dear Customers

I thought we should pass along the following information to you just released from Hans today.

This is the second major thing coming from Impact Racing regarding safety. The first issue was some of their suits did not have the proper SFI certification and now this on counterfeit parts. This guy has been in the business for over 30 years with a very well and trusted name by racers around the world. We do not carry the line nor will we ever. Personally I do not trust this company or their products.
Regardless for your safety please see if you are affected by this. I applaud Hans for their quick response to this problem.
Please read below:

HANS FINDS COUNTERFEIT ANCHORS – LAUNCHES FREE REPLACEMENT PROGRAM

Atlanta, Georgia (August 19, 2009) - HANS Performance Products has found counterfeit Post Anchor parts on a helmet purchased from Impact Racing Products.

Preliminary investigations suggest that counterfeit parts may have been supplied with other helmets provided by Impact. “We are seeking the source of the counterfeit anchors and to establish how widely they may have been distributed,” said HANS CEO Mark Stiles. He continued, “It is extremely possible that counterfeits may have been installed on other helmets, either factory-fitted by a helmet manufacturer or by racers installing replacement parts during equipment changes.”

The only counterfeit parts identified so far look like HANS’ current “Professional” Post Anchors, which are designed to offer robust durable service – these have a “teardrop” shaped head to the “post” and an aluminum base engraved with HANS, SFI and FIA markings. Other Post Anchor designs, such as the similar current “Standard” version, which have the same teardrop post but a simpler black plastic base, and older designs which had a round shaped head to the post, do not seem to have been counterfeited.

Stiles said, “If racers want to check their Professional Series Post Anchors, one quick test is to touch a magnet to the post. The posts used in all our designs since July 2005 are magnetic. The posts on the counterfeits we have seen are not magnetic.” He continued, “Our earlier designs used a non-magnetic material for the post, so a non-magnetic post is not necessarily a counterfeit, but it is a reason why a racer should contact us for more information.” The link below shows what to look for when testing the Post Anchor.

http://nsvirtualurl.com/core/media/media.nl?id=2634&c=337809&h=d02ae9a6a725bbdbb4f2

To ensure all racers have confidence in their safety equipment, HANS is implementing a program to replace any counterfeit Post Anchors free of charge. Details of the program, other information and program updates are available at hansdevice.com, or by calling HANS direct at 1-888-HANS-999, or contacting one of the 200 authorized North American HANS factory trained dealers nationwide.

The HANS Device is the #1 choice for performance, #1 for vision and #1 for winners.

Details and information about HANS Performance Products are available at www.hansdevice.com or by calling 1-888-HANS-999 or 770-457-1046.

Sincerely,
Robert Zecca
www.teamdi.com

[GT-Subject]

Viz, Did you check your anchors with a magnet!!??

[WatertownNewbie]

Originally Posted by GT-Subject

Viz, Did you check your anchors with a magnet!!??

Paul, the problem is with the Professional Series Post Anchors. Viz (of course) uses only the AARP Series Anchors.

[Tireman]

Originally Posted by WatertownNewbie

Paul, the problem is with the Professional Series Post Anchors. Viz (of course) uses only the AARP Series Anchors.

Uh oh, another candidate for the Sledge-O-Matic

[Rosso]

Two observations:

First, it was not entiirely clear to me that the parts were marked as if they were represented as genuine HANS parts. If they are so marked and they are not genuine, then counterfit is indeed the correct term and that alone is guilt enough.

Second, from an engineering perspective, HANS is being quite vague in their explanation (at least what we read here). "Non-magnetic" can be a wide variety of things. Most stainless steels are non-magnetic while some are slightly magnetic. Are we talking about a part that is being produced from a cheap grade of stainless steel instead of the factory aluminum? In that case, cheap 18-8 stainless may be stronger. Chromed carbon steel can present its own pifalls They don't really specify what they are using themselves, only that the non-OEM parts are different.

It would be hard to imagine why Impact (Bill Simpson) would cut corners on something like this? Since most of their stuff is made in the USA they could cut more corners by moving production to Mexico or China.