SCORE Journal - The Official Publication of SCORE Off-Road Racing
Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/470914
IMPROVING SAFETY STAND 21 AIRFORCE RACE SUIT WITH VENTILATION RECEPTACLE. of the day. Desert racing is, by its nature, conducted in hot desert conditions during the day, and cool to cold at night. So race suits in this type of environment must serve multiple purposes. They need to protect a driver from a flash fire, be comfortable, allow freedom of movement, and be breathable. The most protective race suits have traditionally been multi-layer apparel with quilted boxed stitch construction so air chamber are created to further prevent heat or flame from reaching the drivers skin in the few seconds it takes to get out of a burning race car. Using this quilting technique a medium sized driver suit may have an average of 300 air chambers within it. As the science behind personal protection from fire improves through innovation, new fire suit designs include single layer and multi-layer models that are highly breathable, non-restrictive, and offer the highest degree of protection. RACE SUIT RESEARCH When you are researching what you want, need, and can afford in a race suit, it is easy to invest in more than your racing environment requires. When doing research for this article, the STAND 21 Air Force race suit, with its cooling technology seemed like a great setup. But de Lespinay, for several good reasons, advised that off-road racers would be better suited with something like the company's ST3000. "Actually, the Stand 21 Air Force suit is best in fully enclosed cars, and is hardly ever used in off-road racing. It would be a bit of an overkill, as the Air Force suit is derived from the ST3000, that performs the same duty inside the open cockpits found on most off-road racing vehicles. "Carlos Sainz and many other racers used the Stand 21 ST3000 to win the Dakar rally," de Lespinay said. The differences in these kind of racing suits come from research done in vehicle cockpit 079 SCORE JOURNAL