SCORE Journal - The Official Publication of SCORE Off-Road Racing
Issue link: https://read.uberflip.com/i/1543953
ADVANCES IN SAFETY APPAREL Making Great Strides In Protection For 2026 By Larry Saavedra It’s been more than 50 years since Simpson Race Products founder, Bill Simpson, lit himself on fire in the 1970s to prove a point about the heat and flame protection properties of Nomex. It was a spectacular stunt that some say helped to bring today’s safety apparel industry into the mainstream. Every year since then the racing apparel industry keeps improving their products to help racers stay safer each time the green flag drops. As we’ve done for many years, SCORE Journal interviewed the leading safety apparel manufacturers to learn even more about the advances and the latest innovations. Protective apparel for off-road racers including suits, gloves, undergarments, shoes, and even airbag vests for the moto classes, are all designed to reduce the inherent risks to racers and crews. For manufacturers it can be a complicated task to evolve like this. According to industry spokespeople, they face ever changing rules and regulations about safety equipment that must meet SFI, FIA and other major safety certifications, depending on the type of product they are offering. While affordability remains a key topic of discussion, the apparel industry stresses that you should never go cheap with safety apparel. “That’s the bottom line,” they all said. Counterfeit apparel is another hot topic among the industry leaders that was previously written about in the June 2017 issue of SCORE Journal. Video: Live Test Of Racing Suit On Fire In 2017, Stand 21 with the Racing Goes Safer motorsport safety foundation, conducted a fire test on a fully FIA dressed driver on the Dijon Prenois racetrack in front of the Porsche Club Motorsport France members. GRAPHICS AND BREATHABILITY Another hurdle the industry faces is the need to respond to direct racer requests about improved breathability, comfort, and how visually appealing products can be for sponsors and team logos. Simpson has addressed graphic styling by adopting sublimated suits. They’ve put a new twist on an established technology. “Our new sublimated suits feature the latest technology for graphic design using sublimation,” says Simspon’s Senior Product Engineer, Jonathan Gwinn. Holley is the parent company of Simpson Race Products and Racequip brands. To be transparent, other manufacturers in the safety apparel industry also offer their own sublimation process for graphics. “There’s been a push for lighter weight racing suits and one way to do this is using the sublimation process for graphic designs instead of traditional embroidery,” Gwinn said. “From sponsor logos to any graphics we can create the suit using sublimation, making the suit much lighter. This newer process embeds itself (and the graphics) in the suit material much better than years ago, and it is longer lasting. This is an evolution of the process because the art work can be insane. There’s almost no limit. It does away with normal embroidery methods. We’re not the only ones doing this with suits. But in the end we are always exceeding SFI and other standards.” Breathability as you know is especially relevant in desert racing, where ambient temperatures in the desert can reach triple digits and dehydration is a constant threat. Multi-layered racing apparel should never contribute to dehydration either, and so cooling materials are one area of concern for the apparel industry that’s being addressed by most of the industry in some fashion. What SCORE Journal learned is that not all materials used in suits can have the same breathability, especially those materials using a sublimation printing process. It’s something to think about before you dive into a suit because of its appearance and the ease of adding sponsor logos. SCORE Journal took an non-scientific airflow test using a traditional non-sublimated suit versus a sublimated suit with graphics. The result was the traditional suit offered much more breathability. It didn’t look as cool as the sublimated suit with graphics, but it breathed better. LATEST PROTECTION TECHNOLOGIES Another area of concern is stabilizing a person’s possible head and neck injuries after an incident when removing a helmet. At the Stand 21 headquarters in Huntington Beach, California, SCORE Journal tested the company’s balaclava called Lid-Lifter to see how it worked. The balaclava was originally invented for Formula 1 racing, but is well suited for the off-road industry. It features easy to reach pull-straps to make helmet removal safer for an injured racer. When demonstrated, it was not only a faster way of removing a helmet, but it also took the helmet pressure off the wearer. Stand 21 also showed us their driving suits equipped with “pull straps” under the shoulder epaulettes to make racer and passenger extraction in an emergency quicker, especially when seconds matters most in an on-board fire. The company was the first to create a line of racing gloves with the stitching on the exterior to prevent blistering on the hands. They still manufacture their racing gloves this way and with better finger articulation added. Lastly, Stand 21 uses Nomex thread for all sponsor and team logo embroidery which they believe helps improve breathability of racing suits to keep racers dry and comfortable. Another industry innovation comes from Shot Race Gear, who released its new SRG-1 and SRG-1 Max airbag vests for moto racers in collaboration with In&Motion. According to SRG, “These products represent the latest generation of autonomous motorcycle airbag technology, specifically designed for motocross, enduro, rally-raid and extreme off-road competition, making them highly relevant for desert races such as the SCORE Baja 1000.” MANUFACTURERS SPEAK OUT In another discussion with K1 RaceGear, they said Baja desert racing presents safety challenges that differ significantly from closed-course racing. “Extended race duration, remote terrain, limited access to immediate medical facilities, and delayed response times all increase the importance of rapid and accurate medical decision-making when an incident occurs,” according to Kelli Willmore at K1 RaceGear. To address this reality, K1 RaceGear is integrating ICE-KEY (In Case of Emergency) medical identification technology into select USA-market K1 race suits. ICE-KEY is a passive NFC (Near Field Communication) medical identification system embedded directly into the race suit. It does not require batteries, wiring, or external power. Willmore says that in the event of an accident, emergency personnel can scan the ICE-KEY using a standard NFC-enabled smartphone. This instantly provides access to the driver’s critical medical profile. In regards to gloves K1 RaceGear has proposed a concept that acknowledges that co-drivers often remove their gloves in operating touch-pad monitors. Which defeats the safety aspect of approved gloves. They are proposing precision access slits at the thumb and index finger, but the certification of this innovation is still in question. “While the concept has proven practical, full adoption has been limited by certification and liability considerations within the current SFI and series rule frameworks, which do not allow exceptions for partial fingertip exposure,” said Willmore. When asked how manufacturers determine new safety technologies, Marc Shear from O’Neal USA said, “Most of our safety technology starts with real world riding.” Shear says off-road racing is demanding, and his team rides, races, and works closely with desert racers who give them direct feedback. “We combine that hands-on experience with internal product design and field use and testing,” he said. “Helmet products go through rigorous testing in ACT Independent test labs assuring safety that surpasses DOT and ECE Safety standards. When we see consistent issues from our test riders such as heat, fatigue, or impact concerns, those insights guide design updates. It is a continuous loop of rider feedback, testing, refinement, and final production.” SUIT UP YOUR CREW While we’ve written about products for drivers and co-drivers, there are also approved suits, gloves, shoes and undergarments designed for pit crews. Flash fire can happen in seconds when refueling, and touching a hot vehicle can cause significant burns to any unprotected body part. Wearing sturdy, fire-resistant shoes that provide solid traction and support should be in every crew gear bag is the consensus of the apparel industry. It’s good to note that racing apparel using Nomex versus being coated with a fire-resistant chemical is something you will find when shopping for products. Industry experts say Nomex materials will last the lifetime of the apparel, whereas apparel with chemically treated fabrics are known to become less effective after years of wear and wash. Willmore at K1 RaceGear has reminded us that every year we’ve produced this safety apparel section in SCORE Journal, demonstrating that racing is a dangerous sport and it’s important to be informed. “No matter how lucky we’ve been in the past, at some point your luck runs out,” she said. “It’s not only about winning, it’s about making sure everyone comes home.” SJ