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The Indy Racing League (IRL) continuously strives to improve safety for drivers of open wheel racecars. As part of a comprehensive engineering effort, the IRL carefully investigates crashes that occur to understand crash causation, the vehicle dynamics involved and driver outcome. Over time, these investigations lead to improved facilities, vehicle design and restraint system performance. One of these investigations involved an open wheel racecar that struck a barrier and became airborne. Without the benefit of an intact suspension, the bottom of the vehicle struck the ground with significant vertical deceleration, leading to driver injury. The vehicle's onboard event data recorder captured the event. Working with the IRL, the Center for Advanced Product Evaluation (CAPE) developed a dynamic sled test to recreate this specific event. The test involved design of a sled buck to simulate the key elements of the racecar's seating system, restraint system and interior.

Spinal fractures in open cockpit open wheeled racecars have increased in frequency over the past 10 years (7.5% of all racing injuries in 1995 to 18.7% currently). In order to quantitate this and investigate potential causes we collected all fractures occurring in 5 open wheeled series from 1996 to 2005. The ultimate goal of the study is to identify causative factors that can be altered to lessen the fracture risk. This is a multipart study. These fractures were categorized as to fracture type and severity, and correlated to ADR-2 data from the race car. Also used in the analysis were data from a rearward impact barrier test, HYGE sled testing and development of a computer model. (Development of the model is reported in a separate submission) 38 incidents resulted in fractures in 36 different drivers (2 involved in 2 incidents). 54 spinal levels were injured with 9 drivers sustaining injury at more than one level. The thoracic and thoracolumbar spine was involved most frequently.

Heat Stress is the result of the body's inability to maintain a stable core temperature when subjected to a heat load. This occurs when the sum of the environmental heat load and the metabolic heat load exceeds the body's capacity for heat dissipation. Failure to dissipate the heat load results in increase in core temperature and the development of heat illness. This is a recognized problem in closed cockpit race cars and can lead to severe illness and even death. The Body's primary thermoregulatory pathway is sudation (the process of sweating and evaporative heat loss). Research, sponsored by Stand 21, has been carried out to study the effect of the “fire suit” on this process and to improve the breathe ability and performance in providing an environment for evaporative heat loss. The evaporative resistance and permeability index of the fabric define the comfort of the suit as experienced by the wearer.

Currently, no high impact helmet standards exist for children. To meet the rising demand for these helmets in the youth market, manufacturers have basically downsized adult helmets. Children's heads and necks are very different than are adult's. Therefore, youth helmets do not provide the same level of protection as do adult helmets. We determined head mass and circumference in 128 childhood athletes aged 7 to 17, as well as made 95 separate anthropometric measurements from skull x-rays of children aged 6 to 17. We defined two distinct age groups. Group A, ages 6 to 11, and Group B ages 12 to 17. Comparing these measurements to adult measurements, and using previously reported anatomical differences we were able to show that the heads and necks of children are much different than are adults in mass, circumference and the ratio of head length to neck length. And, that these differences point out real and potential issues with youth helmets.

From past experience, crash accelerations in CART Champ Cars during 2000 and 2001 would have caused head injuries at a 15% occurrence rate and neck injuries at a 7.5% occurrence. In 28 incidents in 2000 and 2001 involving 33 drivers, there were no cervical fractures or dislocations, one significant, but minor head injury and 8 instances of minor neck complaint, all of which resolved spontaneously within three weeks. One driver lost racing time. This on-track experience supports the laboratory data previously published and demonstrates the efficacy of the HANS® * device in substantially reducing the risk of head and neck injury in motorsports. (*HANS® is a registered trademark and an acronym for Head and Neck Support.)

This paper describes the initial phases of an on-going project in the GM Motorsports Safety Technology Research Program to investigate Indy car crashes using an on-board impact recorder as the primary data collection tool. The development of a database consisting of crash investigation data patterned after national highway crash databases is discussed. The data gathered and coded includes track and incident scene information, vehicle damage, and driver injuries, as well as the vehicle decelerations measured by the impact recorder. The paper discusses the development of specifications for the impact device, the selection of the specific recorder and its implementation on a routine basis in Indy car racing. The results from incidents that produced significant data during the 1993, 1994 and 1995 racing seasons are summarized.