Clayton H. Accident

There was a bunch of drama on Facebook. However I never heard the whole story.
What happened, is there video? Did something malfunction in his safety gear?

Anybody heard how his recovery is going?

In no way is this thread meant to be disrespectful to Clayton or his family. I believe everyone here is genuinely concerned when one of our own people get hurt.
In fact I was hoping a little tech info would come out in order to prevent something like this from reoccurring. I know Clayton's rig was unique and he has a no fear driving style but any info to make this a safer sport should be shared.


I'm also unaware if anyone has posted on FB of his condition as I don't really follow a lot of people on FB.

Google button.
https://www.gofundme.com/clayton-hollingsworth-outlaw-racing

I had wondered similar, and the story on the go fund me page answered no questions about the nature of the accident. I was wondering if it was a suspension or Solid seat and whether the chassis took a hard hit straight down onto a rock so the suspension had no chance to cushion it, so a compression style problem or if it was of a different nature

He was in a solid seat. My understanding is the chassis landed on a ledge/rock right under the seat. The suspension didn't take any of the blow, his back did. Thats what I've been told by a mutual friend. Its a bad injury. Thoughts and prayers for him and his family.

Don't ISP's have a one time crush foam in them to help prevent this?

Everything is situational. I ripped a disk the long way and herniated another in my neck landing a 60' jump at DTOR. Compression injury on fox shocks/bypasses PRP podium seat, next gen rev.... I was in some nice gear and landed on a decent suspension and still took a hit with a 4-5 month recovery.


I'd like to know if the foam in the seat crushed and how he actually landed. The above story reads like its second hand.


My interest is in learning about it to find out if it was similar to mine, where my spine/neck was in just the right (or wrong) position upon landing to do some damage OR if some other safety measure could have helped prevented it... like a suspension seat.

ToyotaTom said:

Google button.
https://www.gofundme.com/clayton-hollingsworth-outlaw-racing

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What a completely useless post. Answered zero questions.

If the accident was during a race then there should be plenty of video but I haven't found any. Does anyone know what race it was?

I was told that he was in Outlaw 2.0 and it has a Kirkey containment seat which I don't think has the different stages of foam in them to help prevent this.

twostep said:

What a completely useless post. Answered zero questions.

If the accident was during a race then there should be plenty of video but I haven't found any. Does anyone know what race it was?

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What a completely useless post. Answered zero questions.

I remember when all the rock bouncing started, everyone was pulling the engines and Kirkey seats out of their dirt track cars and building buggies. After several back and neck injuries everyone changed to suspension seat, pretty much eliminating those injuries.
Now the race organizations are starting to mandate seats that are made to cushion a head on collision. Seems it's a bit backwards to me.

yankster said:

I remember when all the rock bouncing started, everyone was pulling the engines and Kirkey seats out of their dirt track cars and building buggies. After several back and neck injuries everyone changed to suspension seat, pretty much eliminating those injuries.
Now the race organizations are starting to mandate seats that are made to cushion a head on collision. Seems it's a bit backwards to me.

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Exactly what I thought but ISP is a sponsor.

I totally mis judged a jump once in my old smith buggy with kirkeys , bottomed out suspension and fractured my L4 . It's caused a lot of issues and that was 7 years ago. I swore I'll never sit in a solid seat again and focused much harder on better suspensions .

Rockwells607 said:

I totally mis judged a jump once in my old smith buggy with kirkeys , bottomed out suspension and fractured my L4 . It's caused a lot of issues and that was 7 years ago. I swore I'll never sit in a solid seat again and focused much harder on better suspensions .

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I've asked this question several times before in other threads and always seemed to get shot down. First off i dont see how a solid seat could be comfortable at all.

I still think a solid full containment seat mounted on a pivot frame (that incorporates the belts too) with its own suspension at the rear (right below your spine) would be the way to go.

Even if it was just some timbren rubber dobbers under the rear of the seat.

jeeptj99 said:

I've asked this question several times before in other threads and always seemed to get shot down. First off i dont see how a solid seat could be comfortable at all.

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I'm with you on that. My first cheap-o suspension seat was a Corbeau baja or whatever the cheap one is and once I sat in it......everything else was terrible. I've taken some decent slams down on some rocks with the chassis and even with the susp. seats it made me think I dodged serious injury.

When you are racing it's really hard to get the belts tight enough to work right and stay tight with a suspension seat.

The ratcheting (like they have a 1/4 drive ratchet to tighten the lap belts) style help, but you still end up flopping around in between the seat and belts, and the belts loosen up.


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tonybolton said:

I'm with you on that. My first cheap-o suspension seat was a Corbeau baja or whatever the cheap one is and once I sat in it......everything else was terrible. I've taken some decent slams down on some rocks with the chassis and even with the susp. seats it made me think I dodged serious injury.

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You dont wheel though. You're an instagram wanna be

There was quite a discussion on this on Pirate years ago. Desert racers NEVER use suspension seats. I have a couple MOMO carbon fiber shell seats with foam that are used in desert racing. Something about potential energy from downward inertia being compounded by suspension seats loading up on a hit. No idea. I've raced the mint in a POORLY tuned 10 car, 7 hours straight, huge ass whoops and aggressive driving and my back felt no fatigue on the momos. They kind of hold your back slightly bent "hunched" at the bottom. At a grand each, I hope they know what they're doing, they still feel weird as ****. I'm sure there is more science to it than we are discussing here, I can't imagine a suspension seat not being better for a full chassis bottom out under the seat so it is not such a hard stop. I'm not always right though. Every Year we raced KOH, 7 of them now, and 5 aggressively with reckless abandon, we have been in PRP, Mastercraft, and one year of ProArmor suspension seats, and all years were 7 - 14 hours and also, no back fatigue, but maybe in none of these anecdotal instances did we ever take a hard enough chassis or G out hit to make me feel much.

John had some insight on this topic. He shared with me while I was building mine. I believe he understood the theory of hard seats but said logically he would use a suspension seat

I realize everyone's concern and curiosity with how it all went down, but I wouldn't pass judgment on hard shell seats just yet without knowing the specifics. I have 2 questions, was his harness still tight like it was during the run, and was it a big G out straight to the belly pan off a ledge?