Concussions, Full Containments Seats and a bouncing ball.
I wanted to raise a topic and share a few thoughts on some safety topics that became hot this season and share some things I've learned and my point of view. Tonight I was watching a Ted talk on concussions and some of the data that has been collected with sensors placed in mouth guards of Stanford football players. The data recorded shows very precisely the movements of the head and how the brain most likely is injured. Now I had always assumed and was led to believe a concussion was primarily the result of the head stopping abruptly, like striking your head on cement and then the brain striking the inside of the skull damaging the surface of the brain where it struck the skull. There is a video on the CDC website that demonstrates this theory, however the Stanford study has a shown this to be inaccurate. What the data showed was that one, the damage actually takes place near the center of the brain and two it is primarily the result of a whiplash effect, not a singular impact.
This got me to thinking about at least 2 of the racers I know that have had concussion injuries this year, Dale Jr. and Brian Shirley. Both of these drivers I'm fairly certain use "Full Containment" seats, I know junior does for sure. So how can this be? How can both drivers get concussions and be running the best safety equipment money can buy? Dale races upwards of 200mph, but Brian's wreck wasn't nearly that fast. Brian didn't even strike a wall or fixed object, just rolled over several times and not even the most violent I've ever seen. Some will argue, "It's speed, It's speed, they're just going too fast", but I'm not so sure that's the culprit. In human culture it seems to be we knee-jerk react when bad things happen, desperately hoping to avoid a repeated incident. Too many times in our rush to fix things we make them worse. I don't want to see us rush and make things worse.
I've been involved in DLM racing since 86', concussions and rollovers were non-existent for nearly the first 12 years of my involvement, but with technology and setup evolution, now the cars more easily pop over. From 98'-08' the cars became more prone to turn over, but still concussions weren't that common. Then came the "Full Containment Seat" craze. I've never liked them in DLM's because they make exiting the car under perfect conditions difficult, I can't imagine what its like upside down or with fire! Tonight watching the TED talk and seeing the data showing the head whipping back and forth I had an epiphany. Have you ever been playing basketball or with any bouncing type ball and have it jump into a confined space and suddenly, caught in that space, it bounces violently shooting back and forth at tremendous speed. This made me think of some of these containment seat designs where your head/helmet in nestled in all cozy between 2 huge rubber pieces. Now imagine if the car rolled with your head in there, I imagine it would ricochet back and forth pretty violently like the ball did. I don't have any video to prove this or personal experience doing it, but to me it seems a logical possibility to explain why with more safety equipment we're getting more injuries.
You don't have to agree with me, but if you'd like to share a thought or two they are welcome, but lets not be hasty and start throwing around mandatory this and mandatory that because some things happened that were sad, horrific and upsetting. I read the recent article by Kelly Carlton in DLM magazine and I agree with most of it, like using fire suppression, but I'm not in favor of full containment seats. Most people who post on 4m don't even know what certain safety equipment is made for and what it can and can't do. Many times people have posted that mandating Hahns would fix everything, when that's only good for a straight ahead impact. It's late but I'll try and get the link to the TED talk for anyone interested.