If you reread the announcement from SFI (www.sfifoundation.com) it says Impact is to refund in full to those customers affected. So the little guy should be in shape to purchase something new. Big teams like Target-Ganassi have to do the same.....in a big way....and a much bigger refund....if Impact does the right thing.

I'm here in St Pete at the IRL race working for Bell....watching it rain....and believe me, it is a buzz here and big news......some seat belts were switched out yesterday. In Martinsville it raining....and yes they are talking about it there too. 2 Cup drivers called today and switched to Bell Helmets and are making deals for Oakley and Sparco for suits. I saw the Simpson Nascar rep last night at a TBARA sprint car race and he got a couple of Impact defectors too already.

If you question SFI reputation, spend some time looking around the SFI website. They do certification for a lot of things. Let me clarify a couple of rumors already started on IOW. SFI is not the mob. They are a non profit foundation, like Snell, and they recoup their cost with the sales of the patches and stickers and they are less than $2 a piece. They do the certifications...NOT us manufactures. We all do in house cert tests before sending them to SFI....and then they put them to the test before certifying your product. They have a facility that is second to none to do flame tests, puncture tests, tension and tensil strength, etc for all products.
FIA is another organization that is recognized world wide so there is more than one, and they are both good.
USAC, Arca, WoO to SCCA, Nascar, IRL, QMA and NHRA all have agreed that SFI is the certification standard that they set their rules by......they have contracts with them as do a whole host of us manufactures. It's a good system and SFI does random field test to keep us honest. Last year the cotton thread was found in Impacts suits, then counterfit Hans clips with the SFI cert number printed on them, which led to the latest findings.

We don't need a varity of standards to go by, one thing accepted at one track....something else legal at another. Just someone who is always testing to see what we can do to make things safer. SFI, FIA and Snell do that. Then we will continue to build products accordingly, to make things safer. We don't need safety to go the way of sprint car racing.........360, 305, 410...non wing, mini, micro, steel, aluminum on and on....just something that is common.

As the Bell guy I will say, Simpson drivers Jesse Hocket, Brady Bacon, Casey Shuman and many others run a variety of cars, tracks, and series. No matter where they go, they know their safety equipment is legal and excepted. SFI has helped make that happened.

I've never been as impressed with Simpson as he is with himself. He's done a great job over the years at selling himself as some of the comments here attest to. However, what turned my off about him was his whining about his competitors being copy cats. That's probably true, but that's exactly how he got into the business.

From what I've read SFI didn't decertify him until the 3rd violation. And these are not violations of some bookkeeping error or mix up. This involves buying and affixing counterfeit labels. That's no accident. Why didn't he fix the problem after the first? I've heard some defend him based on the contention that the SFI fees are not reasonable. Whether they are or not is another subject. I don't think I'd be willing to risk my life defending his "good" name.

just found this out a couple days ago was sent to me by email anyone with the impact safety equipment should read this click on the link below




http://www.sfifoundation.com/Decerti...ce03-26-10.pdf

According to what I read on the Impact site, they are legally challenging the SFI decertification and claim that the SFI action is over illegal tags. They also claim that their products are safe...

Until this issue is resolved legally, or otherwise, how do you know that Impact products are safe? Because they said so? I'm sure that SFI's action was not taken lightly.....

All threads related to SFI decertification of Impact Race Products has been merged together.

If you really belive that their belt hardware is made of hard plastic then you my friend are on some good s#$t! Did you ever make a call to Impact and ask them for loops on your belts? I bet not, belive it or not there are other racecars in the world besides sprint cars. And they don't need loops in the belts. Maybe you should educate your self on what your needs are before blaming the manufacturer.

I am a Impact racing customer and I belive in their product. I know Bill personally and I know he would NEVER put a product on the market that was not tested and safe for use. If you don't want to run it fine by me!

Bob Shutt

I was disappointed & surprised to find no loops on my new set of Impact belts. Then the local shoe repair shop charged me the exorbitant amount of $5.00 to sew them on for me. Someone should be held accountable for this travisty!!!

We had several youth helmets fail the roll off test. Impact did custom fit the helmets for the kids that had the problem. That is as long as the parent knew they had a problem. I wanted them to issue a warning or bulletin to sanctioning bodies where these helmets were used. But nothing happened. I put a Adult Bell on the same kids that the Impact youth helmet failed and the Adult Bell that was way to big passed the test. My kid and myself will never wear Impact equipment again. This just solidifies my decision. Race, Win, LIVE!!! And for the previous poster that loves Impact there is no other REAL racecar besides a sprinter.

As a safety guy now what do I think or do ...several of the folks I work with use Impat...and I know a lot of racers that do also...so I wonder now will my gear fail me..has the drivers gear failed him..and who will save both of us if our Impact gear fails us all... I personally work all diffrent froms of racing from dirt, to NASCAR, to NHRA.. alot of racing in a summer ... I put a lot of faith in my stuff at times ...as much as I hate to spend any more on safety gear ...beaause believe me safety crews ani't making any money either for being there I want to be able to go home at the end of the day too

I'll never know what it cost me, I had my wife sew on the lap belt, what I cut off the shoulder belts! And, when you buy a set of belts for a Sprint car, you expect to get a set for a Sprint car, which shouldn't make any difference, a lap belt for a lawn mower, should be the same, only difference might be in the length. I used Bell for a long time, they had the smallest hardware of any, and where the lap belt hooked to the latch, the 2 ends were just under 2 inches apart, which allowed you to almost get them tight enough by yourself, then, the next new set I bought, they were further apart, and I couldn't do the by myself, so I called Bell, told them the deal, the lady that answered, personally went to the first set she could find, pulled them out of the box, and measured them to the specs, all while I waited. In 3 days, I had a new set, at the proper spacing. Then almost everyone went to a pull up style, and the search was on, cause in a midget, or small car, you don't have room in the car, to let the belt out. I'd like the old Bell setup back again. Bob