A good friend of mine was killed on Sunday ! He was a senior development engineer for Ricardo, and a very experienced club race driver. At 54 years old he was no young hot shot, but very quick and competitive. Having raced many seasons in Formula Ford single seaters, he has over the last 5 years or so raced a road registered Caterham 7, fitted with a Caterham designed full roll over cage ( see the car in the attached picture )
He was killed on Sunday morning at 7 am on a quiet country road, meeting a parked Land Rover on a bend. My reason for this posting is my continued concern over the proximity to our egg shell skulls of these roll cages, particularly in a gt40 were frames pass across the front of the door top opening without curving around the screen line, as any frontal accident will impale our unprotected scull onto a solid steel bar with fatal results. No seat belt or Hans device will prevent a head moving the few inches that is needed to impact the forehead, and of course we dont normally wear a helmet when driving on a public road. No one wants or ever anticipates a direct frontal impact on our cars, but as in this case it does happen. Your thoughts ?
He was killed on Sunday morning at 7 am on a quiet country road, meeting a parked Land Rover on a bend. My reason for this posting is my continued concern over the proximity to our egg shell skulls of these roll cages, particularly in a gt40 were frames pass across the front of the door top opening without curving around the screen line, as any frontal accident will impale our unprotected scull onto a solid steel bar with fatal results. No seat belt or Hans device will prevent a head moving the few inches that is needed to impact the forehead, and of course we dont normally wear a helmet when driving on a public road. No one wants or ever anticipates a direct frontal impact on our cars, but as in this case it does happen. Your thoughts ?