Katie Kelly wrote:
>
> By the way, but were not race car drivers back in the forties completely
> INSANE? Check out her helmet! Did they even have seatbelts back then? I
> don't think so.
I don't recall when the article on the 50th anniversary of seatbelts
in racing ran in SportsCar, but it stated that the SCCA was the first
to require seat belts in race cars, and IIRC that was in 1948. That
same article said something about the SCCA helping get the helmet
research going that led (after the death of Pete Snell) to the Snell
Foundation being formed in 1957.
A newspaper story in the London Telegraph about a campaign to allow
certain vintage drivers to drive their vintage cars with vintage
helmets (an "old enough that they will die soon anyway" rule?) said
that the original auto racing helmets (still available) were based
on polo helments. (My facetious parenthetical hides a reasonable
argument, which is that heavy modern helmets could be more dangerous
in certain accidents if used in a car without the lateral head
support and belt systems that modern cars have.) Better than
nothing but far from Snell approved.
Jim Carr
BS 1993 Miata & Old Fartz physicist
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