Safety always

With our new cars, we figure safety apparel is a must.

1/8/04

he guy who is building my front-engine dragster, Tommy Harris of Fabrication Concepts in Douglasville, Georgia (678-618-9545), called me last month with some dire news. "You better check your (NHRA) rulebook," he said. "It looks like if you run a blower and alcohol on your engine, you're gonna have to wear a Funny Car suit and gloves and boots."

So I grabbed my 2004 NHRA Rulebook and first looked under "Nostalgia Dragster," which is what my 200-inch-long race car that'll run a 355 Chevy with a street blower will be based on. On page 109, under "Protective Clothing," it reads: "Jacket and pants meeting SFI Spec 3.2A/15, 3.3/5 gloves and 3.3/5 boots/shoes mandatory. See General Regulations 10:10." Interpreting that, I deduce that my pants and jacket, suitable for Super Comp, would suffice, as would my gloves and racing shoes. My old helmet would have to be replaced, and I'd have to go out and get a pair of good arm restraints, so no problems there.

By the way, when I had my own magazine, Bracket Racing USA, which turned into Drag Racing USA before it was corporate-killed, I did a big story on safety issues and the SFI ratings. I learned through one source that --- are you ready for this? --- "SFI" stands for nothing. It is, according to my seatbelt source, just a bunch of letters strung together to make the ratings sound important. But the numbers after the "Spec's" ARE important. A "15" after a Spec rating means that the protective clothing in question can withstand burning for up to 15 seconds. Same for a "5" --- five seconds and those 3.3/5 gloves are burned off your hands in an in-cockpit fire. That's important info to know.

So I turned to General Regulations 10:10 and learned this: that any front-engine race car with a blower or turbocharger, or on nitrous or on alcohol must have its driver clothed in a jacket and pants meeting SFI Spec 3.2A/15 requirements, with gloves or shoes meeting SFI Spec 3.3/5 requirements. I turned to the preceding page, 225, and learned that racers competing in Top Fuel or alcohol dragster must wear the same spec clothes.

Holy Smokes! I'm now in the same league as Kenny Bernstein and Scott Kalitta! So does that mean I have to walk around in the pits with those big moon-man black boots on my legs and pants thick enough to stop a bullet? Tommy Harris says yes, but he will make my dragster safe anyway. "I'm going to build a firewall between you and the transmission, for one thing. For another, everything will be steel-braided. I'm building this car for a 7-second index," he said.

Still, I was crest-fallen. "Look," I told him, "The engine that will go into this car will be have a B&M street blower on it. Heck, the same engine in one of my magazine project wagons took it to 7.50s in the eighth-mile, and that was in a 3,200-pound Malibu wagon. That thing was built for the street. How can they justify me wearing a Funny Car suit when the dragster will go in the low 6s, tops?" Harris, who has built many a race car, had no answer.

So I e-mailed my old buddy from my B&M Racer Appreciation Series days, race promoter and B&M honcho John Spar. "Hey, John, what gives? Just because I have one of your blowers on the engine, and just because it'll be fired with alcohol, do I have to race with this Funny Car stuff? I mean, that blower adds maybe 50 horsepower tops, and alcohol will drop the elapsed time from gas about two-tenths. I'm looking at the low 6s, maybe 5.90s, and I have to outfit myself like a Top Fueler? Ain't that a bunch of overkill from your NHRA guys?"

He wrote back within the hour. What he wrote kinda shook me up. Here is what Spar wrote, verbatim.