the stop was found on the track and the pinch bolt was still tight (torqued) and the splines didnt strip on the torsion bar. same senario with larsons wild ride at knoxville saturday but he walked away.....which i truely believe leffler would have as well if he had a full containment seat with a full headrest.....and its not just about the headrest that gives the safety to these seats....its about containing as much of the entire body during a wreck and trying to keep the movement to a minimum..... as far as the post asking about lefflers and burtons frames being the same, that was 2 totally different crash senarios....look at the pic of lefflers car sitting on the track....no major frame damage anywhere around the driver....the frame did its job. unfortunately, other things didnt.

It is a big disservice to the sport when those who can say something with weight behind it, instead choose to pretend tragedy is just a part of what they do.

Too many RF stops have fallen off this year alone for it to be just a coincidence or neglect of proper maintenance.
Too many drivers have died this year alone to have even one driver pretend he/she is above wearing/using anything they can to prevent it.
Too many family members have suffered this year alone to have any other driver not stop and re-examine the equipment they are using.

Would it take somebody like Kyle Larson or Tony Stewart to die before it is said; enough is enough

I personally read in disgust last week as everyone talked about a flipping race car and a mangled chassis, and not one word spoke of the driver not wearing a head&neck restraint. Even though he's been asked by his friends to wear one.

Where does it end?

Thank you Brian & Jeannie Butler for caring enough to talk about safety with their customers, friends, and as Jeannie often states - her kids. And thank you STIDA for offering what every driver should be required to have before getting in a race car.

IMO - if a driver does not want to utilize every piece of safety equipment available to use, and nobody wants the sanctioning bodies to require it, then maybe it's time the car owners step up and say 'not in my car you won't.'

Im not sure what chassis the Vander Weerd Brothers are running but I like the hoop on the roll cages. You dont see any cars around here with them but it seems popular in Cali. It would have to help from getting hit on the top of the head.

why don't we just wrap everybody and everything in big ball of bubble wrap, use a 7 ft diameter hoop as the main support structure for the cage, and a big heavy @ ss spring metal bumper completely enclosing the wheels of the car (you know like the go-karts that you rent on the boardwalk while on vacation?). I agree with Gary Bettenhausen. He said in an interview with Chris Economacki at Terre Haute, "When they make these things so safe that those people up there (pointing to the stands) can come down here and do what I do, I QUIT."

Not sure if they still do but Beaberbuilt was using hoops on top of cage and I seen another with them as well

The Vander Weerds cars are Maxim's.

I personally do not use a containment seat. I am fairly new to sprint car racing, but am a long time racer. I went back and forth over the containment seat versus a standard seat. I am a big guy, 6'2" and a cheeseburger away from 300lbs. Beyond the obvious difficulties a containment seat would make for me getting in and out of the car, it was suggested that they would be greatly compounded for getting me out if i was hurt or unconcious. i do use a head and neck restraint ( never made a lap in my sprinter without it). I use a Defender and find it much more comfortable than the Hans for me personally, and like the adjustable angles so i can use it in the drag cars. I am the only one in the staging lanes at the drag strip with a muddy restraint, oddly enough. I do use a net, and am going to try and add a pour in insert this year to my seat. I also have never made a lap without Stida coverage, and i promise it will be in effect before i go out again. I am not a seat manufacturer or an engineer but feel like a reasonably safety concious racer that chose my seat carefully for reasons i thought were valid.

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LOL, ever hear of euthanasia? Believe you me... noone in my family would be wiping my ass. I'm glad I don't race anymore. These safety sissies would drive me to insanity...

This is a good pic of my son in a 2012 Eagle Midget...as you can see he is a BIG boy 6' 285 and he would not race without a FC seat. I to was concerned about any kind of extraction until it was preformed as a dry run with no issues at all. You also can see this is a conventional style midget without all the extra side bars or body panels for aerO. Each person has to be comfortable with whatever they so chose but for me .....

I HAVE TO TAKE A STAND AND FEEL GOOD THAT I DID EVERYTHING WITHIN MY POWER as a series owner and track promoter that I took every caution to prevent a tragedy like has happen WAY TOO MANY times in the pass couple of years. Some racers would not change EVEN if they knew absolutely it was going to kill them...They have to be made to chance...Stewart is a classic example with the HANS

Wayne I applaud your decision to require full containment seats by all of your competitors. However most rules in racing especially safety rules come about after the majority of the racers have already adapted the idea for use by their team because they think it wise. I go back to sprints and midgets that did not even have a roll bar, someone then put a chrome hoop behind the driver and pretty soon the thickness of the tube and distance over the top of the helmet were introduced by the sanctioning bodies. Then following hard top and modified practice someone bolted a cage in place of the roll bar and these drivers were called "sissies". Pretty soon everybody was using them and the powers that be then introduced new rules for the specifications for the cages.

Seats are becoming more popular all the time but I think head and neck restraints are slightly ahead of the seats in open wheel racers right now.

In open wheel racing drivers depend on side vision to survive, it is true racers are supposed to drive to take care of the car they are overtaking at least until their front wheel is even with the cockpit of the car ahead. The younger drivers coming up now many times don't adhere to this basic etiquette of open wheel racing. That side vision interrupted by these seats might help a driver prevent contact with the overtaking car.

The seat people are starting to design open wheel seats now that will be quite different from stock car seats.

I know you don't like wings but at our speeds they sure do a lot to make our crashes less violent. Many people see wings as crutches and in fact they are. We lean on these things in the turns and they sure help the inexperienced drivers get use to racing and staying on the race track. A wing driver is no less a driver than a wingless driver. Each require different driving styles, ant the god driver can switch back and forth effortlessly.

We run 4 point crash bars instead of the lighter 3 point style nerf bar. Like Cecil said this is close to those wrap around rental bumpers. The easiest way to flip someone you have a problem with is to drop your right front wheel just in front of the other guys left rear and let off the gas a little. Crash bars won't let him do that to you, and helps prevent unwanted flips.

Sure hope your rules work out for you, but the guy that just bought a $4000.00 used car to race with you is sure going to think twice about another grand for a seat. As For you "Henchcraft" people with your $20,000.00 or $25,000.00 race car that grand is just a drop in the bucket. Keep your races on 1/4 mile and shorter tracks and stay away from Bubba's place and you got a pretty safe race program.

Honest Dad himself