Actually, his lower jaw hit the rim of the steering wheel that caused the base skull fracture if I remember correctly. The seat belt failure allowed him to get up that far.

If he would have had a full helmet on he might still be here.

 

http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/200...-frontal-crash

Independent doctors hired by the family did NOT come to the same conclusion as NASCAR.

It's pretty evident from NASCAR's nearly immediate change in rules mandating HANS devices that they knew it as well. Otherwise, a simple "seat belt failure" wouldn't have warranted such a change in the rules, no?

Earnhardt's official cause of death was given by the Volusia County medical examiner's office as blunt force trauma to the head from the impact with the wall. He had also sustained a fatal basilar skull fracture, eight broken left ribs, a broken left ankle, a sternal fracture (possibly from attempted CPR), and abrasions in the clavicle and hip areas (proving that the seat belts performed as designed).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_o...ries_sustained

NASCAR's testing showed he sustained anywhere from -68g to -48g...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_o...s_of_the_crash

He was dead instantly...and they changed the rules to prevent anyone else dieing in the same manner.

 

Perhaps you should look up the word sarcasm. I thought it would be pretty obvious with that comment given the context but apparently not enough.

You can list a million different things, but if it doesn't include a full face helmet and HANS of some sort, then no, you don't have the proper safety gear in my opinion.

For HPDE, my list of the MINIMUM requirements is the following: Full face helmet, HANS, 5/6 points with proper mounting, "race" seat with lateral support (similar to the Sparco EVO), fire suit/gloves/shoes, and (at minimum) a hand held, readily accessable extinguisher. I would like to see at least a 4 point roll bar to offer SOME protection in case a car does end up on it's lid. Of course the big problem is that if that was mandated not many would show up. No matter how you spin it, be it HPDE or W2W, you are driving these cars FAST. If you do it long enough, you WILL hit something. When that happens, it's worth the few dollars to do everything I can to put the odds in my favor that I will walk away.

"Just a HPDE"? Luckily the owner of this Mustang didn't take that approach. I took this picture at an HPDE. After 2 times over on the roof at Road America, he walked away. The car had a rollbar and he had a full compliment of safety gear.



Want a real eye opener? How about a C4 at Mid Ohio that had a brake failure...

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/auto...io-photos.html





Even in an HPDE environment, this could very easily happen. In fact, I actually had a brake caliper fail at Summit Point in my C4. Luckily it happened in an area with a large runoff and other than ripping off the air dam, I was able to spin it out gently and didn't have any damage.

...not to mention, most HPDE require point-bys to pass. Pretty hard to do that with a window up.

Yep.

That is what was thought initially with limited information. The final report (link below) says otherwise.

According to the official report, that is exactly what happened.

You can read the full thing online...
http://download.nascar.com/NASCAR/Na...Thumbnails.pdf
Pages 14-16 detail the potential causes of the fatal basilar skull fracture.



If you don't agree, and some don't, that's fine, but I'll ask a simple question. Look at the picture below. Do you want to do that to a steering wheel... WITH YOUR FACE?



EDIT: Your previous post:

Blunt force trauma to the head. What exactly do you think caused that?

 

Yep. This 1 has officially been derailed.


As for the original question again, yes, the best way to avoid fogging is with a forced air helmet. I never really felt the need for one in the Corvettes, but in a car like the GTA stock car, I wouldn't drive without it. Even with the cool box bypassed, the fresh air is a very very good thing.

If I went back to a Corvette, I would most likely be getting a side inlet forced air helmet to go with it since there isn't nearly enough headroom for a top inlet.

 

This is probably the route I will ultimately go since I am buying a GTA car in the near future. I plan on attending comp school later this year, and I will be due for safety upgrades. A forced air helmet is now on this "must have" list. In the meantime, I'll try a couple of other suggestions mentioned.

 

In a GTA car, I list this as a must. No question about it.

The helmets aren't all that expensive (I have an Impact Supersport Air that I bought at the PRI show for about $400).

You don't need the full coolbox setup to make it effective. This is with the box bypassed (the box sits in the opening just forward of the blower). $20 for a blower, a few feet of hose, and a NACA duct is all you need. My guess is that any car you buy will already have most of that...