CTPJ

theplatinumog/walleyejack/kenownr - Thank you!

Racingswh - Not only was Bob a great driver, he was a great person and a great friend. He was like a second father to me. I first met him when he was a guest instructor at a PCA track event at the old MOROSO racetrack (now Palm Beach International Raceway) in 1981. We were we both racing in IMSA and both had Cooper Monaco race cars (his a '59 and mine a '60 ex Ecurie Ecosse team car). We shared a love of current Porsche race cars and enjoyed vintage racing long before it became so popular. Eventually, I became the owner of the Coca Cola Fabcar 935 (considered "The Last 935" - see below) which we raced together. I think about him almost daily and I still miss him to this day.

tw78911sc - Absolutely!

IRMB/bullitt4110 - As I mentioned in my post, a complete safety system includes a roll bar. To be more specific, a complete safety system for a race car would include a roll cage. As tw78911sc stated, you should never drive a car with a cage unless you are fully strapped in and are wearing a helmet. Also, in my opinion, it is extremely dangerous to put a cage in a street car because, if properly secured, your vision is severely restricted. Remember traffic patterns on a track (everyone is going the same direction) are entirely different than those on public roads. For a dual purpose track/street car, although not as protective, a roll bar is preferable. With that said, more and more people are going to dedicated track day cars with full gages - myself included. There are a lot of used race cars for sale that would make a great track day car which can be bought for penny's on the dollar compared from building on from scratch.

subieworx - I agree that a harness bar is adequate for autox as long as it's not a high speed event.

bullitt4110

That is route is eventually like to go myself, I only mentioned the roll bar because this is still a street vehicle and would provide some safety in a roll while keeping it safe on the street without a helmet.

IRMB

I am thinking roll bar, too. but need to check out kevins. I've heard they can limit how far back the seats can go.

these are the guys making kevins roll bar. www.racespecialtydesigns.com/home.php

Avanti

Maybe if one is a pro with lots of experience one would think to "duck" out of the way... and would have the body-strength to do so against whatever other forces are in play.

I've talked to far too many who say that seldom happens with amateurs. If one is going to race, one NEEDS a roll-bar, at the least. I've raced a B'ville for 30 years and even roll-cages sometimes fail to do the job. Your life!!!

bullitt4110

Yup that’s them, the owner of RSD is Steve Woods. He was at Thunderhill with us all, him and his wife were driving the white stingray pitted with the Able cars.

pkincy

I can promise you that you likely will not recognize a rollover before it happens. I have been upside down at Auto Club Speedway and it happened so fast I was sliding along my roof before I knew what had happened. But I was in a race car with full cage and a halon system and during a sanctioned race with plenty of safety personnel around and they did a great job. The scariest part was hearing the 3 cars behind me hitting each other as they tried to avoid my now upside down car.

All of this probably is why you will continually see me posting on here about the advantages (both in fun and in safety factors) to not running a Corvette track car in HPDEs and instead buying a proper race car and running in a large spec class where you actually can race rather than simply drive as fast as you can when the track is clear. Some adrenaline in that but not nearly so much as going 2 or 3 wide in a 100 mph turn with all 3 of you sliding around. Now that will get your heart beating and will teach you how to really drive. In the entire 7 years I actively ran on road race tracks I can't remember a time we didn't have a car leaving the track on a flat bed. But it was far more often from HPDE Group 1 than from a race group. And unfortunately those cars had by far the least safety equipment.

As you can see the roof did cave in but the front of the cage halo kept it off of my head. No fire so I didn't need to activate my halon system.


By the way we made the next race (this was Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, Ca) at Sears Point (Infineon) 4 weeks to the day later. New front clip, jacked the roof back in place with a new windshield, some minor frame work and voila, good to go. Try that running a $100,000 street car around a race track and having a big shunt. Total repair cost was about $3,000.