Racers: Belt Standards Necessary

Noting that the seat belts in their race cars are routinely modified for comfort, NASCAR drivers on Wednesday called for seat-belt safety standards to be established for Winston Cup cars. Foremost among them: Dale Earnhardt Jr.

Speaking to reporters while in Darlington, S.C., to promote the Sept. 2 Southern 500 race, Earnhardt Jr. said it was “not uncommon” for drivers to adjust seat-belt mountings and said he had done it himself “a few times.”

Seat-belt performance is once again a hot topic on the racing circuit because, in its report on the Feb. 18 death of Dale Earnhardt Sr., NASCAR on Tuesday reiterated that the racing legend’s seat belt broke when his car crashed into a wall at about 160 mph during the Daytona 500.

While the report stopped well short of targeting the seat belt as the sole reason for Earnhardt’s death, it did say it was a factor. That drew criticism from representatives of the seat-belt manufacturer, who, backed by two experts, complained the report failed to mention that the seat belt was improperly installed.

“We put instructions in the box for a reason,” James H. Voyles, attorney for seat-belt maker Simpson Performance Products, said Wednesday. “If [they] put them in the car like we tell them, the belt won’t fail.”

Voyles and co-counsel Bob Horn appeared with former company president Bill Simpson at a Tuesday news conference. Simpson could not be reached Wednesday, but Horn had told the Orlando Sentinel Tuesday that, “Because NASCAR made it a point of saying that Dale Earnhardt [Sr.] ran with this installation for years, it’s important to know that Bill Simpson told him for years, ‘Dale, that’s wrong. It’s not safe. Don’t do it.’ ”

But drivers told the Sentinel on Wednesday that such modifications are common.

“If you really walk through the Winston Cup garage and look, you’ll see a lot of things,” driver Jeff Burton said. “I believe my belts are wonderful. But Dale Earnhardt believed the same thing, so we have to use some science and go do some more studying. NASCAR is going to do a lot of that to confirm they are what they need to be.”

Said Earnhardt Jr.: “For some reason, you can mount a seat the same in every car and the seat belt will still not really feel the same across your hip and across your body. At Chicago, the belts were digging into my hips a little bit, so we changed the location of the seat belts just to get them more comfortable. I knew if I hit anything, it would have shattered my hip bone.”

Reports filed by experts hired by Simpson Performance Products and assisted by NASCAR, the sanctioning body for the Winston Cup series, said that the left lap belt of Earnhardt Sr.’s No. 3 Chevrolet was anchored too far back on the car’s chassis frame, and that such a configuration created a “dumping” effect that led to a separation in the belt’s webbing.

Both Accident Reconstruction Analysis Inc., and William H. Muzzy III of WHMuzzy Consulting, agreed that the webbing separated at a roller adjuster from the force created by uneven disbursement on the webbing’s three-inch width because of how it was installed. Under the circumstances, the belt would have sustained a loss of about 60% of its strength. The ARAI report indicated that the webbing separation “likely occurred after significant deceleration of Mr. Earnhardt’s body had already taken place.”

NASCAR received copies of both reports, Voyles said, but failed to mention that seat-belt installation did not match the manufacturer’s specifications.

“If you move it forward or back a half-inch, I don’t think that’s critical, but you have to keep it in position where it’s loaded in tension, or it’s not doing you any good,” said Dr. Charles R. Manning Jr., president of ARIA.

Richard Childress, Earnhardt’s team owner, could not be reached on Wednesday.

The restraint system used by Earnhardt was compliant with SFI Foundation Inc., Specification 16.1 for driver-restraint assemblies, according to the ARAI report. The system, the report also noted, is required by several racing sanctioning bodies, but not by NASCAR.

Muzzy concluded in his findings that “the failure of the left lap belt was not the result of a design or manufacturing deficiency, but was the result of improper method of installation and unfavorable loading geometry.”

According to Simpson instructions, the left lap belt should have been anchored 21/2 inches forward of the driver’s extended back line, which would create a 45-degree angle leading to the lap.

Instead, the belt was anchored to the chassis about five inches behind the driver’s extended back line, meaning it was anchored nearly eight inches to the rear of where it should have been.

“The location of the slot was such that the seat belt would be oriented nearly horizontal when routed from its anchor point to the seat slot,” according to the ARAI report, and that would have made the belt bunch up on one side or “dump.”

The Muzzy report also indicated the location of the anto-submarining strap--the one that pulls up from under the seat--”was forward of the recommended position location and was not as effective in preventing the lap belt from being pulled into the abdominal area when tension was put on the shoulder belts.”

Manning Jr., who headed the investigation for ARAI, said that not only was Earnhardt’s left lap belt mounted in the wrong place, but so were his shoulder straps, which should have been mounted closer to his shoulders and would have restricted his movement forward.

Indeed, those types of adjustments--and others around the seat area--are also said to be commonplace.

Driver Jeremy Mayfield told the Sentinel that he redesigned his seat after crashing during practice for the Brickyard 400 a year ago.

He was knocked unconscious for several minutes after that crash.

“NASCAR came over and took a look at it, and sent other drivers to take a look at it,” Mayfield said. “We’ve redesigned it since then. A lot of guys are doing that. We’re learning.”

On Tuesday, NASCAR outlined several steps to improve safety, including commissioning a study on restraint systems. Also, “black boxes”--similar to flight-data recorders on airplanes--will be installed to help investigators better understand what happens during a crash. NASCAR said it also will use computer models to in an effort to design safer cars and will be involved in testing race-track barriers.