And racing gets more expensive (need new seats?)

Scott Johnson · **Posted:** Thu Apr 29, 2004 8:16 am

From the May SCCA FasTrack, Club racing updates:

2. Seats homologated to and mounted in accordance with FIA standard 8855-1999 or higher need not have the seat back attached to the roll structure. Seat supports shall be of the type listed on FIA technical list No. 12 (www.FIA.com).

The homologations for the following seats have been voided. (Please note the specific homologation numbers of the voided seats as some similar models may have different homologation numbers).

Homologation # Manufacturer Model
CS.992.00 Corbeau Seats LTD Forza
CS.980.99 Cobra Seats Monaco
CS.972.99 Ektor Runner 2000
CS.912.98 Kingdragon Master Fiberglass

I happen to have the very affordable Forza model... I think that this means I need a seat back brace, however, figure out a safe way to do that with a tube frame seat.

Scott

David Spratte · **Posted:** Thu Apr 29, 2004 11:37 am

How does this impact our HPDEs? If it doesn't I might be interested in your old ones if you need to replace them. The Forza is high on my list to get me under the rollbar for Roebling.

MikeWhitney · **Joined:** Wed Aug 20, 2003 9:15 pm **Posts:** 4724

Neither our TT rules nor the Solo 1 rules reference the Club Racing ruleset for seats AFAIK.

We do not have restrictions concerning FIA approval or a seatback brace. Plenty of people using stock seats.

Now, whether that is a good idea or not, I will leave for another discussion. Ask Robert Plank sometime.

Ashraf Farrag · **Posted:** Fri May 07, 2004 3:36 pm

The official ruling from Tech is that as long as the seat is mounted correctly, THSCC HPDE/TT is okay with using any seat. The GCR and that FastTrack apply to Club Racing and HPDE/TT is not Club Racing. The Solo-I book only mentions seats in the context of classing of vehicles and not in the safety section (unless I somehow missed it).

Now, having given you that latitude (here come the groans and moans 'cause the soapbox is coming out)...

We would rather see our participants err on the side of safety.

If you have a car that leans more towards race car than street car (i.e. rollbar, harnesses, etc...etc...a TT eligible car) it would be a good thing for you to go ahead and install a back brace if your seat requires it.

Metal seats like a Kirkey are fairly common/obvious to install and one shouldn't have a problem to locate a prefabbed solution (ioportracing comes to mind).

I'm not sure how you mount to composite or tube frames seats, though. If someone has install instructions from one of those types of seats, we would appreciate if you forwarded a scan/PDF of them...

gary kole · **Posted:** Wed May 12, 2004 6:29 pm

scott you've got a pm on how i solved that problem for racing. and tho difficult, kearney racing can make a brace for the forza.

Ryan Holton · **Posted:** Wed May 12, 2004 8:05 pm

Please share with the whole crowd Gary. I have a Forza II

Rob Keehner · **Posted:** Thu May 13, 2004 1:13 am

I have a feeling there will be some cheap seats on ebay pretty soon

MikeWhitney · **Joined:** Wed Aug 20, 2003 9:15 pm **Posts:** 4724

By the way, I called and talked to Corbeau about this. According to them, their seats have not failed testing, but they merely are "late with the payment" to FIA.

So if you have trusted using their seats (in a non-W2W-race-car) without a brace in the past, what has really changed?

DickRasmussen · **Posted:** Thu May 13, 2004 12:24 pm

MikeWhitney wrote:

By the way, I called and talked to Corbeau about this. According to them, their seats have not failed testing, but they merely are "late with the payment" to FIA.

Having been in the Product Certification business for three decades, the statement from a sales person "may or may not" be telling the full story. I used to hear some pretty creative stories that client sales staff told prospective customers about the status of their "missing" UL Listing that had nothing to do with the real situation.

The main decision factor if you already have the seat is did the seat you have actually meet the requirements/tests in effect when the seat was manufactured and are any certification labels on the seat legit based on the requirements in place at the time. If so, and the "racing rules" haven't been upgraded to require certification to new/different requirements (aka Snell Helmet requirements), then nothing has changed AFAIK.

gary kole · **Posted:** Fri May 14, 2004 9:22 am

had a long talk w/corbeau and bitched about one year old seats being useless. he said basically that the seat contstruction hadn't changed, but it was a political thing with fia. we came up witha solution. i didn't like padding in seat so they sold me a pump up bladder for the seat back and a new seat cover with 1999 on it. also the padding in the seat bottom on new one is thicker so i sit a tad bit higher, a good thing, as i was too low. just passed my 04 tech at emra races at pocono last week. oh and i got hit pretty hard in drivers side in saturdays race and wasn't worried about seat after that. everything and everybody o.k. as far as seat, i call it the $65 solution. just call corbeau direct-i found phone # at www.ask.com

Mark Vitacco · **Posted:** Fri May 14, 2004 12:41 pm

Greetings:

ALL the GCR states is Non-FIA rated seats must have seat back
brace and FIA rates seats are not required to have the brace. That's
all, at least for now. This only applies to club racing.

If you have a non-FIA rated seat you should, and we perfer, as Ashraf
said, you suport it against the rear bulhead or roll bar horizontal bar.
but there is no SOLO1 rule to require this at present.

Most stock seats will collapse in a severe rear end impact so assume
your non-FIA rated aftermarket seat will collapse as well. The danger
is when the back of your head hits a roll bar as oposed to landing on the
back seat or floor. Hence, for roll bar equiped cars, we recomend
using the brace.

For a stock passagner car with a seat upgrade, hitting
your head on a roll bar is not an issue. All we can do is verify the
seat is securly bolted to either the seat track, seat mounts or other
structoral member capable of supporting the drivers weight multipled
by the force of an impact.

Whilst on this subject, make sure your seat provides laterial support
via the hips and sholders AND NOT the rib cage. There are some
circle track type seats that do not appear to be safe in that respec.

Hope this helps

Ashraf Farrag · **Posted:** Mon Sep 26, 2005 1:22 pm

Corbeau e-mailed me back, they prefer dealing with you via phone. I talked with Spencer Bond about the matter.

Here is what I know thus far without having inspected my own seats:
The Forza can be made compliant but you need to install a seatback brace (so I have to wonder if it was not really FIA compliant to begin with hence the revocation...how does a metal frames "expire"?)

Some versions of the Forza have provisions for this, older ones may not. Depending on when you bought them (mine are second hand, so I fall into a different category of issues in dealing with them) you may or may not be able to install the seatback brace (and they may or may not be able to help you out if you need the seat to be modified to be fully compliant and the one you have isn't).

To determine if you have a seat that will accept the brace, you need to either take the fabric cover off the seat or palpitate through the cover for a nut located between the two holes cut out for the shoulder harnesses. Find a nut, you are good to go...not exactly sure how they want it installed, that's my next e-mail to them once I see that I have something I can work with, or if I need to put them up for sale (looks like $150 in seatback braces from ioportracing.com would be required).

--Ashraf

Vincent Keene · **Posted:** Mon Sep 26, 2005 2:14 pm

scottjohnson wrote:

I happen to have the very affordable Forza model... I think that this means I need a seat back brace, however, figure out a safe way to do that with a tube frame seat.

After hearing about Robert's ding to his head, I decided my stock reclining seats needed a safety system in the form of a brace for the seat back as well.

Scott will my solution not work for you? My braces will be almost identical to this model from I/O Port Racing.

The difference with mine, is the part supporting the seat back itself (red arrow) will be wider and "wraps around" the end of the seat's tubular frame to provide support. If I were to use the I/O Port model with a stock frame type seat it would get ugly in a crash. The "I" work comes to mind. :shock:

Edit: Mine are at the powdercoater right now and I will post pics after they have been installed.

Wes Eargle · **Joined:** Mon Oct 27, 2003 9:47 am **Posts:** 3683

Vincent Keene wrote:

Mine are at the powdercoater right now and I will post pics after they have been installed.

If I had a dime for every time I've heard you say that, I'd have enough for the posse to get through the toll booth on the road to Rock Ridge.

Marty Howard · **Posted:** Mon Sep 26, 2005 9:31 pm

SO the Forza I have ordered should still be ok, but I need to start looking for a brace.

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