Karting Safety

[JimW]

Recticel bales seem to to be acceptable for cars at UK circuits.

From observation I would say that they are good for reducing car damage in small to modest impacts but I have some reservations about them in serious impacts. Also they have a tendency to make cars ride up and/or overturn. Both of which are unwelcome.

Regards

Jim

[mrsweety]

Originally Posted by Chatters

I just had an idea, not sure if it's any good, but... If we put a roof over these superkarts, so you have one streamlined body going over the whole thing, which can be easily removed in the event of an accident or to get in and out of the kart. Any thoughts?

Have to chime in here

Are you serious? what do you think cars are?

There's no belts as being strapped in is lethal
There's no roof.... to keep the center of gravity down, hence they rarely flip

Are they dangerous? no! the safety record is very good, sadly they are a few deaths, more people get killed driving home from events...

Do some of the best drivers race in this class..... YES

I race 125 Gearbox *superkarts* and find your comments offensive


A

[EvilPumpkin]

mrsweety

It's not uncommon for people to have a kneejerk reaction when something tragic happens. It's up to the rest of us to educate which is what we're doing here!

[Doc Hollywood]

Originally Posted by mrsweety

Are they dangerous? no!

I'd have to disagree with you mrsweety, I'm a race marshal and and rescue crew member and in my experience we rarely get a karting event that we don't have at least one competitor transported to hospital following a crash.

I think its safe to say they are as dangerous as motorbikes when involved in sizable accidents.

Having said that I do agree with you that some of the best drivers compete in karts, but its not the drivers we are refering to as dangerous.

[JimW]

And for the complete answer (well the manufacturer's one anyway) see http://www.safeguardbarriers.co.uk/products/index.asp.

Interesting stuff. I suspect that some of the recommendations may not universally be being followed. I shall print a copy and look at some installations with a keener eye in future.

Regards

Jim

[Stephen Green]

Without going into specifics of any individual accident, if you are in a kart that runs headlong into a concrete wall at speed, while not wearing seat belts, you have to expect to suffer some pretty serious injuries!

I think the question is more to do with whether we should run super karts on what are effectively race car or bike circuits. Kart circuits by design are a safer environment in which to run these fast and exciting machines (I love watching kart racing before you think otherwise).

[Gilles lives!]

Originally Posted by Stephen Green

Without going into specifics of any individual accident, if you are in a kart that runs headlong into a concrete wall at speed, while not wearing seat belts, you have to expect to suffer some pretty serious injuries!

I think the question is more to do with whether we should run super karts on what are effectively race car or bike circuits. Kart circuits by design are a safer environment in which to run these fast and exciting machines (I love watching kart racing before you think otherwise).

I can't see that any circuit certainly in the UK wouldn't be deemed as safe for superkarts, all now have impressive saftety facilities and might I add marshalling. As was mentioned earlier the circumstances were of a one off occurrence which unfortunately is quite often the case.

Don't forget that A.Senna and D.Earnhardt died from driving headlong into concrete walls 'with' seat belts on.

[Pike]

I think the problem is in any kind of racing is the circuit owners can only act on the laws of probability and there is always going to be the odd incident here and there that will totally go against what is logical, when this odd incident occurs its then in the lap of the gods what the outcome is. Dont forget its not only karts and bikes that dont have belts - some VSCC cars dont.

As Jim W states on his tag line - Life is not safe, just chose where you want to take the risks. Competitors are very very silly if they dont know the risks when they step in/on whatever vehicle they compete in.

[sf2001]

Originally Posted by Doc Hollywood

I'd have to disagree with you mrsweety, I'm a race marshal and and rescue crew member and in my experience we rarely get a karting event that we don't have at least one competitor transported to hospital following a crash.

I think its safe to say they are as dangerous as motorbikes when involved in sizable accidents.

Having said that I do agree with you that some of the best drivers compete in karts, but its not the drivers we are refering to as dangerous.

we had a lot of the karters from the south up a few years ago racing at nutts corner as they were not permitted to use the mondello circuit following the death of one of the direct drive karters...

some of the karters are absolute nutters.. and the driving standards up north are going downhill too. we regularly have a number of accidents, fortunately none serious, however they are ever increasing..

i'm the starter marshal up here for the karting, and have had several accidents at the startline were the drivers will swerve dangerously in front of the other to stop them passing for the chequered flag... on a number of occasions, actually contacting...


back to the thread at hand... i've found that the officials dont come down hard enough sometimes on driving standards... however on a safety aspect... deaths in motorsport are usually that of freak accidents. From what i know of mervyns death at kirkistown this year, it too was a freak accident. the fact here the BBC have reported the incident to the world on their website inaccurately frustrates me.

im not heavily familiar with the circuit the superkarts were using at silverstone, but to publicise a story as tragic as they did, inaccurately, is quite ridiculous... what if the family read it!?!

[Stephen Green]

Please lt's not get into the specifics of the Silverstone tradegy for all the obvious reasons. Posts that attempt to do so will be removed!

[Kieran20]

Originally Posted by mrsweety

Have to chime in here

Are you serious? what do you think cars are?

There's no belts as being strapped in is lethal
There's no roof.... to keep the center of gravity down, hence they rarely flip

Are they dangerous? no! the safety record is very good, sadly they are a few deaths, more people get killed driving home from events...

Do some of the best drivers race in this class..... YES

I race 125 Gearbox *superkarts* and find your comments offensive


A

Offensive? are u serious because that is over the top. the guy made a suggestion, yes it was silly but nothing offensive about it. whats the problem. the problem simply is, they are very fast and they offer no protection. maybe if you want to go that speed you should move into cars?

[JimW]

Originally Posted by Kieran20

Offencive? are u serious because that is over the top. the guy made a suggestion, yes it was silly but nothing offencive about it. whats the problem. the problem simply is, they are very fast and they offer no protection. maybe if you want to go that speed you should move into cars?

No - if you want to go that speed in that vehicle - you accept the risks. Rather like taking up motorcycling or extreme rock climbing as your sport.

No one is being forced to do this. Circuits and the relevant governing bodies go to great lengths and expense to remove unnecessary risks. After that - it is up to mentally competent adults to make their own decision.

Adults - that raises an interesting question about children and I'm not so entirely sure about that.

(Deletes paragraph about the right to breed, join the armed forces and practice religion. )

Regards

Jim

[Gilles lives!]

Sorry kieran but I have to disagree with some of your comments. Superkarts are consturcted with the speed in mind. The bodywork is usually of a carbon kevlar construction unlike class 1 karts which just have moulded plastic kits that help prevent the interlocking of wheels. The bumpers and side rails are stronger also than class 1's.
The circuits are very safe, especially like Silverstone with large run off areas, if you are unfortunate enough to ejected from your seat you will want somewhere to slow yourself down. You said yourself that you have witnessed short circuit karts cartwheeling over fences, thankfully this wouldn't happen somewhere like Silverstone.
Speed wise if mrsweety wanted to go into cars then he would need a considerable budget to find something with the performance of a superkart, as Luke mentioned earlier, they lap at F3 speeds, although FRenault is probably more accurate I believe. How much would that cost you for a season?
I believe that mrsweety was offended due to the very sad events of last Sunday, a fellow superkarter afterall, those comments that he read and you agreed to, were somewhat silly, although to someone without any superkart knowledge probably understandable.

[luke]

I think in general, karting is fine how it is. But at those speeds in the superkarts gearbox karts whatever with hardly any protection and doing fast single seater speeds I can understand that they atleast need to be stronger.
Maybe a roll hoop above the helmet like Champ Cars have and old F1 cars from the '80s downwards? That would help if you flip. Then you could have a seat belt then I guess.... But your body would still hit the steering wheel I guess and break your ribs?
As fun as it looks and emence etc, and something I'm sure we'd love to do after TKM you got to admit if you're gonna crash in one of them its gonna be bad. I don't know that much about these karts, but couldn't they make the front and sides much stronger so they don't break away so badly if you have a nasty crash at those speeds? (question to those that know about these karts)

[Stephen Green]

Luke, one of the problems in fitting seat belts to any kart is that there is no where to anchor them.

I would like to ask you all to calm down a little and not get into a situation where you are being rude to each other. Everyone has their views, good or bad, and is entitled to air them here. We may not agree with those views but that is what discussion is about. Please try to remember the golden rule "attack the post, not the poster"

On that happy note I will bid you all good night. Beauty sleep calls (and before you say anything, yes I know I need it!)

[sf2001]

as stephen says, a seat belt would be hard to fit to a kart... further to that, if you add roll protection, ok the driver may be alright...

but if the accident is violent enough, and given the speeds involved, its highly probable, then the driver would need some form of roll protection at the front of the kart to prevent his lower half being ejected from the kart...

just my thoughts on that, hope they make sense

[pts106]

There is in fact a 250 superkart with a rollbar and seat belts - Wayne Rainy's kart. I believe it's the kart that Eddy Lawson built. Seen photos of it on the net somewhere.

[Jonas]

And here's a link to a pic... Scroll down to the middle of the page approx.

http://www.partsmag.com/0505-Race-An...a-Preview.html

But I must say I´m not so keen having a roll over in that one either...

[Jonas]

I´ve had some wonderings in what kind of helmet to use, when driving a long circuit kart. At moment I use an Arai Gp5 car helmet.

Car helmets are as far as I understand are made to absorb energy and brake after one really hard hit (like when hitting the steering wheel, roll cage etc).

Motorcycle helmets on the other hand as far as I understand are made to withstand several hits, like when your are thrown clear from the bike and tumbling.

My comclusion is that if I use a car helmet and are thrown out of the kart the helmet is likely to crack after the first hit, and leave no protection for the other hits you get when you´re tumbling. However using a motorcycle helmet and having a head-on may result in a more intact helmet letting the head take all the force.

What do you think?

[Woolley]

What do the regulations say? You may find the type of helmet is defined. I'm no expert, but as you say, the type of safety protection you want would seem to be closer to that required on a motorbike because the type of accident is more similar. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe karters wear leather/kevlar type overalls, not the fire retardent car style. What about body armour, too?

[275 GTB-4]

From what I've seen....Karting...is a Motorsport enjoyed by thousands of kids and adults all over the world. There is an element of danger.....just like a whole lot of other sporting endeavours...I agree with what someone else said..on balance, you are probably more at risk driving home from the event.

[davyboy]

Originally Posted by Woolley

What do the regulations say? You may find the type of helmet is defined. I'm no expert, but as you say, the type of safety protection you want would seem to be closer to that required on a motorbike because the type of accident is more similar. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe karters wear leather/kevlar type overalls, not the fire retardent car style. What about body armour, too?

Leathers are mandatory on long circuits, not on short circuits. In short circuit racing we use proprietary CIK-regulated kart suits which, while giving the appearance of a car suit, are actually made of a mildly abrasive-resistant material. They're inadequate for the speeds involved in long circuit racing which is why those guys use the proper leathers.

[Kieran20]

Originally Posted by Gilles lives!

Sorry kieran but I have to disagree with some of your comments. Superkarts are consturcted with the speed in mind. The bodywork is usually of a carbon kevlar construction unlike class 1 karts which just have moulded plastic kits that help prevent the interlocking of wheels. The bumpers and side rails are stronger also than class 1's.
The circuits are very safe, especially like Silverstone with large run off areas, if you are unfortunate enough to ejected from your seat you will want somewhere to slow yourself down. You said yourself that you have witnessed short circuit karts cartwheeling over fences, thankfully this wouldn't happen somewhere like Silverstone.
Speed wise if mrsweety wanted to go into cars then he would need a considerable budget to find something with the performance of a superkart, as Luke mentioned earlier, they lap at F3 speeds, although FRenault is probably more accurate I believe. How much would that cost you for a season?

I believe that mrsweety was offended due to the very sad events of last Sunday, a fellow superkarter afterall, those comments that he read and you agreed to, were somewhat silly, although to someone without any superkart knowledge probably understandable.

yes fair points. my point is simple that one of these super karts that lap simular to fast formula cars dont offer quite the same protection. that was kind of all i was getting at.

[Gilles lives!]

Originally Posted by Kieran20

yes fair points. my point is simple that one of these super karts that lap simular to fast formula cars dont offer quite the same protection. that was kind of all i was getting at.

They don't you are right, there isn't much that can be done without changing the basic design of a kart though, which would probably leave something resembling a car anyway. I hope that this incident along with those in the recent past, doesn't deter these circuits from inviting superkarts back, as it would be a great loss to the competitor.

[ghinzani]

Interesting point earlier about car vs motorcycke helmets - is that true? Glad mines a bike lid if so! Sadly however if another kart hits you in the head at 120mph you could be wearing a concrete helmet for all the effect it would have.