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Clayton H. Accident

Saying you don't need a suspension seat is like saying you prefer leaf springs over coil overs for racing KOH! Both are going to leave you walking like some pretty boys first night in prison!
 
Elliott said:
Saying you don't need a suspension seat is like saying you prefer leaf springs over coil overs for racing KOH! Both are going to leave you walking like some pretty boys first night in prison!

I'm going to remember that saying. That's priceless! :rolf:
 
If you had RIGID suspension would your rig work???

To me having a RIGID seat is like having RIGID suspension....at that point YOUR back is the shock absorber in the system.

Using your back as a shock does not work, at some point you will lose and you will get hurt. Why even take a chance with that? Is a few extra pounds because of a seat really that big of deal...To me it is not.

I hope people think more about the impact this will have on your life if you brake your back..its not worth it. It will change the rest of your LIFE.

Get a good suspension seat. thumb.gif

P.S. In no way is this an attack on anyone, and i really hate that people have been hurt using a Rigid seat enjoying a hobby they love.
 
kmcminn said:
I would like to see some of the guys that run these races chime in.

I can't speak for the bouncers but I can for Monster and Mega trucks. You want find a suspension seat in any of the fast ones. There have been 3 back injuries I know about in mega trucks in the past couple years. One was directly related to having a suspension seat. The other two were in hard shell seats but I blame the harness not being mounted correctly. I have a hard shell in mine and bottomed it out hard enough a couple weeks ago to break the bump pads on the air bumps. I felt it bottom out but it want any harder than a good bump on the interstate. The foam in the seat is the key and any movement is bad.
 
A Ford said:
I can't speak for the bouncers but I can for Monster and Mega trucks. You want find a suspension seat in any of the fast ones. There have been 3 back injuries I know about in mega trucks in the past couple years. One was directly related to having a suspension seat. The other two were in hard shell seats but I blame the harness not being mounted correctly. I have a hard shell in mine and bottomed it out hard enough a couple weeks ago to break the bump pads on the air bumps. I felt it bottom out but it want any harder than a good bump on the interstate. The foam in the seat is the key and any movement is bad.

Do you replace the foam after a hard hit like that?

I would assume that a "real" race containment seat with foam, would essentially be like a helmet (for your ass and back) and would need to be replaced periodically or after a hard hit/crash
 
The foam in a good seat is different than a helmet. The foam in lets say a Kirkey cover isn't what I'm talking about either, that stuff is just for comfort. The stuff Im talking about is WAY stiffer. If you ever have a chance to sit in a good containment seat or a seat like a Sparco take it and you will see what I mean.
 
The lack of information in this thread and misinformation is dangerous.
Maybe the video below will help.

Full Containment Racing Seats - Rock Rods Tech

If you are a trail rider - A good PRP or Corbeau suspension seat is what you want. I ran PRPs in my bouncer and loved them, I also have PRPs in my endurance race RZR.

NO CHEAP KIRKEYS! - A regular cheap Kirkey seat with no padding other than what is in the seat cover has no business in an off road vehicle EVER. I had some pretty good crashes in one in my RZR buggy and I hurt for a while, now I have an ISP. I could not imagine what it would do to your back if you bottomed out the chassis landing on a rock ledge.

Hill Climb Racing-
If you want to Hill Climb or Rock Bouncer Race where the possibility of a rollover or landing hard on the belly pan is a high probability then you want an ISP full containment seat with the different stages of foam to cushion your landings and also hold you head from flopping side to side when you barrel roll. Kirkey also makes a full containment seat with high impact padding in the bottom, they are cheaper that an ISP but also not built to custom fit you either.

Here is a good example of a real life situation. I sat in line in my ISP seat in my RZR buggy waiting my turn to run the first Race to riches 3 qualifier hill yesterday after watching half of the field roll back down the hill (I drew #43). One of which went to the hospital. If I was still sitting in a kirkey seat or a suspension seat I would have opted out of that hill completely as a few of the drivers in line did. But since I had a good seat and good harnesses and a rzr buggy when I rolled to the line and Taylor Picket asked me "Matt are you sure you want to hit this hill. I replied Yes Sir! I chose my line and climbed that hill.

Moral of the story, get the right seat for the job and make sure you get either pull up harnesses or ratcheting harnesses if you want to race. I run some PRP padded race harnesses that you pull up to tighten and they get good and tight to where I can't move.
And as Chris said in the video if you can't swing the hammer you can't drive the nail!

If you need some good seats me and Jake would be glad to help ya'll find the right one for your rig. We can get PRP, Corbeau, ISP, or Kirkeys.
 
A Ford said:
For those of you with Kirkey seats and other hard shells something like this is what you want. PRP also makes one. You can also buy just the foam Kirkey and a few other seat manufacturers and make your own. It makes all the difference in the world, I promise.

https://www.upr.com/series-194421-upr-racing-seat-pad-full-bottom-new.html
I run a kirkey big boy because it's the only seat that fits me, that looks to be what I been wanting and didn't realize they made it, thanks for the link


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
 
I watched the video of the race, he posted in the comments that he wasn't going to show it out of respect. Class act move if you ask me.
 
Mr. leafspring said:
I hope for healing of his body jus like the rest , but all this chit chat and still no video ... :dunno:


I could be wrong, and probably so, but that course looked to be ALL in the woods after the starting line and was pretty much not viewable by anyone. Even the videos that were posted of other drivers, did not have any of them running through the woods. All I read was that when he did come out of the woods he was at idle just trying to get to the finish line for medical assistance. Godspeed for recovery of a tough man...




ADMINISTRATOR
 
poolman said:
I watched the video of the race, he posted in the comments that he wasn't going to show it out of respect. Class act move if you ask me.

If it was the video from High Octane Films, I watched the original video he posted of the event that included Clayton's full run. High Octane took down the original video and reposted after some other editing. I watched Clayton's full run a couple of times, but you never could see when he bottomed out due to all the woods.

CHASMAN9 said:
I could be wrong, and probably so, but that course looked to be ALL in the woods after the starting line and was pretty much not viewable by anyone. Even the videos that were posted of other drivers, did not have any of them running through the woods. All I read was that when he did come out of the woods he was at idle just trying to get to the finish line for medical assistance. Godspeed for recovery of a tough man...

ADMINISTRATOR

In the original video, he did come out much slower than any of the other racers that day, but I didn't think anything of it since it was watched it before I had heard of Clayton's injuries.
 
I have raced Ultra 4 and hit hills against bouncers for 3 years. 2 years in a PRP Podium suspension seat. 1 year in a PRP RZR seat in a u4 car. I've talked, sat in and researched ISP extensively.

I've hit trees going 50 and come to a sudden stop. No injury, little soreness

Bottomed out a lot of times.

Rolled, flipped, and flopped a dozen maybe more. A lot of sudden stops at slower speeds and getting hit from behind by Miller(lol)

I got hurt 1 once. herniated disc and ripped the disc above it in my neck. It was off the big jump at DTOR. Compression injury. 4-5 month recovery , pain not sleep crap etc..

A few things, comments, thoughts....

- My Dr, physical therapist, agree with ISP. That one time layer crush foam is the safest for a hit. But when you ask them about comfort/ being in the seat for multiple hits or 8 hours... they change their tune and start talking about how getting uncomfortable and trying to concentrate is really dangerous. Their line of thinking was along the lines of a different safety factor. A driver needs to pay attention to being smooth and riding the edge of in control/out of control. Its hard enough to ride that line for hours when you are comfortable. Also a big hit where foam crushes early in the race would change the seat for the next few hours.

- Cash Lecroy had to modify his ISP. The non stop hits of endurance racing had him smacking his head repeated and hard on the side supports. He was knocking himself out in an ISP.

- If I was going to hill race the bouncers, I'd be in an ISP, no doubt.

- My seat belts come loose. mostly the shoulder belts a few miles in. If my crew can get in the car on top of me and get my lap tight, it really doesn't loosen a noticeable amount. But WHEN I get out mid race, its really hard to put my belts back on in all my gear.

- I would like to try a short race in a few different hard seats, like the PRP Alpha, or others, just to compare.
 
Poke said:
I have raced Ultra 4 and hit hills against bouncers for 3 years. 2 years in a PRP Podium suspension seat. 1 year in a PRP RZR seat in a u4 car. I've talked, sat in and researched ISP extensively.

I've hit trees going 50 and come to a sudden stop. No injury, little soreness

Bottomed out a lot of times.

Rolled, flipped, and flopped a dozen maybe more. A lot of sudden stops at slower speeds and getting hit from behind by Miller(lol)

I got hurt 1 once. herniated disc and ripped the disc above it in my neck. It was off the big jump at DTOR. Compression injury. 4-5 month recovery , pain not sleep crap etc..

A few things, comments, thoughts....

- My Dr, physical therapist, agree with ISP. That one time layer crush foam is the safest for a hit. But when you ask them about comfort/ being in the seat for multiple hits or 8 hours... they change their tune and start talking about how getting uncomfortable and trying to concentrate is really dangerous. Their line of thinking was along the lines of a different safety factor. A driver needs to pay attention to being smooth and riding the edge of in control/out of control. Its hard enough to ride that line for hours when you are comfortable. Also a big hit where foam crushes early in the race would change the seat for the next few hours.

- Cash Lecroy had to modify his ISP. The non stop hits of endurance racing had him smacking his head repeated and hard on the side supports. He was knocking himself out in an ISP.

- If I was going to hill race the bouncers, I'd be in an ISP, no doubt.

- My seat belts come loose. mostly the shoulder belts a few miles in. If my crew can get in the car on top of me and get my lap tight, it really doesn't loosen a noticeable amount. But WHEN I get out mid race, its really hard to put my belts back on in all my gear.

- I would like to try a short race in a few different hard seats, like the PRP Alpha, or others, just to compare.

have you ever used/seen the ratchet tight belts?
That's the only way I could get laps tight enough.

Before that I had PRP make me some "pull up" belts, where you pull UP on the laps to tighten. I could brace my feet and push myself back into the seat (Corbeau XP) really hard and tighten them down pretty good.
 
Take a look at the endurance racers and vehicles from the Dakar rallye.

They spend 8+h/day in their vehicles going 60+ on average during 1 day.

No-one runs suspension seats. Everyone runs Sparco type seats, which are a hard shell with some sort of foam at the bottom.



I do agree that suspension seats ahve their place (I have some on my buggy), but I consider them a great/comfortable seat for trail riding. If I where to race anything, I'd be in a quality hard shell (not a Kirkey).
 
eye witness at the race said clayton was coming down hill and caught a large rock sticking up from under ground on the front end. The rig came to an almost instant stop, then as the suspension uncompressed the rig went over said rock and he rolled on the through the finish line off power but they knew something was wrong.


i was not there this is what i was sold by another racer. im sure gilbert and/or clayton will eventually address the accident so that we can all learn from it.
 
First time poster full disclosure: I'm Jeff Furrier from UPR Racing Supply in Tucson Az. I'm a lifetime off roader/racer, I've been in the business since the early 80's. We've(UPR) been the driving force behind shell style seats in off road racing for about 15 years. I designed the pad in the link above specifically hard seats to make them safer and more comfortable in off road cars. The UPR seat pad is honestly being used by a large percentage of the top off road racers, Rob Mac, Menzies, McMillins and many more.
I'm not here to answer questions if you'd like, I'm not an ambulance chaser trying to capitalize on your friend's accident. I see ISC has been mentioned in this thread, I have a ton of respect for Chris and we share similar philosophies on seating. If he's a sponsor, buy from him. If I post a link or picture to something we sell, its for educational purposes and not a sales pitch.

I've investigated plenty of hard crashes, I'd like to see video of the one in question if its available.

Here's a couple bullet points based on some of the posts.
I have never seen a containment seat in an off road car, a containment seat is what you commonly see in NASCAR Cup cars that contains a drivers whole body. If a seat has side head restraints which are being used in off road cars, that could be called a halo seat or head restraint seat.

A suspension seat isn't a smoother ride, it's a rougher ride. Every time you hit a bump in a suspension seat, you travel down, then bounce up, then down again. You take about three times as many hits as you would in a solid seat with proper padding. The more you move, the more chance you have of being hurt. Think about how loose your belts are after the first hit because you compress 3 or 4 inches? Then on the second hit your belts are loose, so you move even more.
There's no dampening in a suspension seat, its only a spring suspended by Nylon cord. Its not really suspension as your car has suspension; it really is a "suspended" seat as you are suspended in it by the cord and mat that holds the bottom.

Seat belt set up is the cause of a large percentage of injuries. Today I bet 80 percent of the off road racecars are set up wrong..if not more. You have no chance of a proper set up in most suspension seats because the belts bind as they go through the seats so they are never tight. The shoulder harness should hold you back, not down. If your shoulder harness is pulling down and is uncomfortable when you tighten it, its wrong. Ratchet belts work fine, but they are often used as a Band-Aid for a bad set up. I sell them, but don't use them in anything.

Here's a good explanation of how to set up belts properly, its from a Jeep project I'm working on.
Post 219 - https://goo.gl/x5Q2Tq

I'll do my best to respond or feel free to call us or email us through the UPR.com website with questions.
 

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