20 replies to this topic

[Tomas Karlsson]

I have seen in previous threads that roll-over bars became mandatory in Indycars at 1959 and F1 in 1961, but do anybody know when it started?
In Sweden the F3 cars had to have roll-over bars from the start in 1948. And a lot of the drivers used simple seatbelts too.

[Mohican]

As far as I remember, rollover bars were introduced in F1 as a consequence of the engine being placed behind the driver; i.e. in 1959-60. As long as the cars were front-engined, there were no bars. Possible exception being the Ferguson P99, which I seem to recall did have a rollover bar.

It is another thing entirely that the rollover bars used on F1 cars were criminally low and generally useless for many years afterwards - through all of the 60's, anyway.

[Tomas Karlsson]

The only F1 car I can think of before 1961 was the American Scarab.

[D-Type]

In F1 roll bars were introduced in the 1961 regulations

At Indianapolis the 1957 Belond didn't have one while in 1958 the same car did, which suggests it may have come into the Indianapolis regulations that year

They seem to have been in US sports car racing in the fifties - I remember my Castrol Achievements of about 1958 showed them.

[Tomas Karlsson]

I know that American track roadsters had roll-over bars in the 40-ies.
But where there any roll-over bars before World War II?

I think it is so fascinating that it took so long before people really did anything about safety.
When Swedish driver Severt Sundberg was killed when his Ferrari overturned in 1953, there was talk of a mandatory roll-over bar on all open cars in ice-racing. And some cars got one. But there were no rules.
Sture Selander was killed at Gardemoen in 1949 in an Effyh, that had a a roll-over bar like all Swedish F3s. He was thrown out and the car landed on him. After that race people said that he wouldn't have been killed if he had used a seat-belt, like some of the other guys. But no one seemed to learn anything from that.

[Herbert]

USAC made rollbars mandatory for Indy cars in 1959 after Pat O'Connor died during the 1958 Indy 500 because his car flipped and landed upside down.

The same for sprint cars. But the problem was that the rollbars were not very high so serious injuries and deaths were still quite common. To prevent this USAC introduced rollcages for 1970 or 1971.

[RTH]

In the UK john Aley started making and selling simple rear roll-over bars for Minis in the early 1960s

[Tomas Karlsson]

Does anybody know when it became mandatory in American sportscar racing? Was it in 59 too?

[xkssFrankOpalka]

In SCCA, modfied sports cars were required to have roll over bars, production race cars came later as I remember having to put one in my Austin-Healey 100-4 about 1960.

[Manfred Cubenoggin]

And just to show that the roll over bar had value beyond its obvious intent to protect the driver in the event of the car turning turtle, I once had a fellow FF competitor blow a passing attempt on me wherein we locked wheels and his car flew over top of me. I had a splendid view of his bellypan as it sailed by. On inspection of my car back in the paddock, a large black smudge of rubber was found on the right-hand rollbar vertical member, just six inches over my right shoulder. Without the bar...gulp!

[Mike Lawrence]

I think rollover bars were mandatory in Formula Junior, at least from 1960, but they would be have been damn-all use without seat belts. It was a step in a certain direction. The one thing drivers feared was fire, better to be thrown from a car and suffer broken bones, than be roasted alive. Being thrown from an open car also explins why some drivers were against hard hats when they became mandatory in 1952. The thinking was that if you crash, and are thrown from a car, additional weight on your head will increase the chance of neck injuries. In the 1950s, you preferred death to life in a wheelchair.

[Bonde]

Perhaps a bit OT, but have a look at the Junkers J 8 through J 10 series all-metal monoplanes of WWI: They have roll-over hoops that would not look out of place on any single seater racing car 60-70 years later: http://www.junkers.d...dienbibliothek/

Just an excuse to use the picture below: Robert Nellemanns 1949-1950 Silver Bird 500cc F3 car had the mandatory roll-hoop, and even a lap belt, but as may be seen, the driver didn't need to be particularly tall to have his head stand proud of the hoop. Still, it may have saved Nellemann from serious injury - he did roll the car (at least once), which explains the very much dented and skewed appearance of the car today, relative to the pristine, smooth bodywork seen in launch pictures before it was raced. Scandinavian Midgets had mandatory roll-hoops, which were even fitted to some of the later imported Coopers IIRC - certainly to the locally built copies.

[bpratt]

In the 1930s up here on the left coast of Canada roll bars for rookie drivers were made mandatory by the local promoters in both the big cars and midgets. "Hoops" they were referred to as. "Sissy bars" by one driver, Bud Green, who promptly rolled his car without the hoop and ended up losing a lot of skin and gaining a full body cast for the rest of the season. Of course that didn't stop him from coming back and crashing a bunch more (and winning quite often as well).

In the 1920s (earlier?) there was a motorized version of polo done with a driver and rider on stripped down Model Ts. They also had big roll bars.

[Tomas Karlsson]

The thinking was that if you crash, and are thrown from a car, additional weight on your head will increase the chance of neck injuries. In the 1950s, you preferred death to life in a wheelchair.

It maybe was possible to be thrown out when you had those big open cockpits in the 50ies. But when they crept down in the small racers in the sixties, I wonder what they thought about. Is there anyone who knows if there were any talk about seatbelts after von Trips and Ricardo Rodriguez accidents?

And when they finally started to use rollbars, they put on those flimsy thin tubes. Probably the most promising Swedish Fjunior driver was killed, when his car oveturned in Helsinki in '63.
In Scandinavia we had roll-bars and seatbelts in the 500 F3s. But that was probably because they used to race on the small speedway ovals. Their ideas or rules were strangely not taken up in road racing. You could think that there is some sort of progress in the knowledge. But the Scandinavian F3 rules never became international and wasn't even followed up in national racing.

In the 1920s (earlier?) there was a motorized version of polo done with a driver and rider on stripped down Model Ts. They also had big roll bars.

.
It seems as if the roll-bars first was used in places where the cars were likely to turn over. Racing cars was not intended to roll, so they didn't need any. Well, the drivers didn't have helmets either..

[Joe Bosworth]

In the US the SCCA did not require roll bars as late as 1957 but seat belts had been mandatory by then. The SCCA mandated roll bars for and from either the '58 or '59 season but I can't quite tie into which.

In Australia, CAMS did not require roll bar or seat belts as late as the 1966 season. In 1967 roll bars were required by photo evidence I have but can not confirm that seat belts came in at the same time but I believe that they did.

Regards

[D-Type]

I asked the question on Trackforum to see if they can come up with anything. Interestingly a contributor there immediately made the point that roll hoops and seat belts or safety harness should go together.

[Mike Lawrence]

The Arnott 500cc Formula Three car of 1951/2 (prototype 1951, production cars 1952) was fitted with a 'lap' seat belt as standard.

Interesting comment about 'Sissy bars'. Sir Stirling's father insisted he wore a crash helmet and the Greatest Living Englishman got huffy about it because he thought it was "Sissy". In recent years he has managed to persuade the FIA to allow him to race with one of his original-style skidlids, which was actually a polo helmet.

[Joe Bosworth]

D-Type notes above:

" Interestingly a contributor there immediately made the point that roll hoops and seat belts or safety harness should go together."

Too true. There was a thread recently asking about major technical contributions to car safety. I almost, tongue in cheek, was going to contribute that a 4 inch wide chrome drawer handle was such a major device.

As I noted above there were a number of years in the US where we had belts but not roll bars with terrible consequences from time to time.

One of the worst that I witnessed was Sebring 1957. Bob Goldich somersalted and end over ended a team Arnolt Bristol under those conditions. The Arnolt Bristol was one of the many cars of the day in which the driver sat about half above the body line. It was one of the most sickening sights that I have ever witnessed in action.

Driver's concerns for such things occuring in those days resulted in many fixing the aforesaid drawer handle to the floor of the passenger side so as to have something to hold on to and pull/hold oneself down in case of calamity. As if we really thought we had either time or strength to avail ourselves.

Ignorance and self belief was rampant.

[Joe Bosworth]

Mike Lawrence wrote above:

Stirling Moss "managed to persuade the FIA to allow him to race with one of his original-style skidlids, which was actually a polo helmet".

It may have been but I doubt it. I have a photo of a helmetted Stirling, in 1948, in his F3 car.

He, we, felt very safe indeed in our Cromwell crash hats. The Cromwell was a cork "pudding bowl" with a leather covering and leather belting and string suspension inside. The leather exterior extended down over the back of the neck and under the chin for fixing. Easy to confuse with a polo helmet.

Such were the best we had until late in the Fifties, the California company, Toptex, came out with the first step towards modernity. The Toptex helmet had a hard plastic outer with energy absorbing, dissapating, load spreading interior. Still no back of neck protection and I rememnber it still having a suspension. Much better and besides it probably took about ten times the force to split.

In 1957 Dr Peter Snell lost his life to head trauma racing in California. Some of his medico friends realised that there were better things possible and put up the money for the first formal testing and development of helmets; the beginning of the Snell Foundation.

A little later, I think in the very early Sixties, Bell Helmets bought out Toptex, married technologies and came out with the first of the "modern helmets". These had the Toptex type technology but with a tight fitting, no suspension. They were open face though.

The first common use of closed face helmets came in 1970, though there may have been some limited use earlier, possibly 1969, but I have no reference to earlier than that. It wasn't long ago that I threw out my first Snell approved Bell closed face helmet away. The interior foam wasn't much chop by today's standards. Maybe I should have donated it to a museum.

Just to put things into historical perspective.

[Tomas Karlsson]

The first racing cars in Sweden after WWII was a couple of small racers inspired by American midgets. A Swedish technical magazine tried to inspire more builders and wrote a lot of articles on that subject.
This is what one intelligent journalist wrote in June 1946:

" The drivers should be fastened with belts like those that are used in all aeroplanes. This fastening arrangement together with a strong roll-bar can save the driver's neck in an accident."

It took over two decades before F1 got it.

[Bonde]

Methinks the thought of capping an acccident with a funeral pyre, particularly with an upside-down car, was one of the major reasons that belts, and as a consequence, roll-hoops, took so long to come on board . For some reason, the fact that a significant proportion of accidents ended with a fire with the driver still trapped in the car anyway, whether inverted or not and in spite of the absence of belts, seems somehow to have been rather ignored at the time. A conscious and pretty much intact driver still stands a better chance of exiting a burning car than one rendered unconscious or in other ways incapacitated by being flung against the interior of the car due to lack of belts. Then again, even in this day and age I still hear the occasional meathead claim that he or she doesn't want to be 'forced' by the Law to wear seat belts in road cars because they'd rather be thrown clear than be trapped in a car going into a ditch, into a body of water or erupting in a Hollywood explosion

Maybe this is a cue to re-open the thread I started some time ago re the sentiment towards passive safety in the past?