2013 Head Rest Rules

[Decker]

We just finished the headrest design for our new car and it is massive. The new rules are, in my opinion, overdoing it. 11" min height if it's stationary?!

Anyone know what drove the creation of this rule?

[Racer-X]

I can only guess that is to allow shorter people to drive the car.

We have had issues on our team before where if we make the car work for a 95% male shorter drivers or even an average male (like myself) will only fit with a different seat than the "percy" seat that we tech with. This isn't that big of deal with average sized drivers and we can account for that. This becomes more of an issue if we want to put a shorter person in the car, say a shorter female. The shorter drivers sit too low and the head restraint wouldn't work as intended. Seat inserts can't really fix the issue either when there is a foot or more of height difference (overall). That means we have to make the rest of the car adjustable. We have already been doing this with different head restraints that we Velcro on.

The end result will be similar to older designs. The head restraint can remain a normal size if you figure out a reasonable way to make it adjustable.

[Ben A]

What do you mean with headrest design? what is new in the rules i found nothing, or i haven´t understand you. Please give me the rule you speak about. Thank you

[Markus]

T5.6 - the same rule as before but with updated content.

[Bemo]

The problem with the old headrest rule was that it only gave a minimum distance from the point where the helmet touches it to the edge of the headrest. This allowed very small paddings if adjusteable.
During the dynamics there was an endless amount of discussions when teams showed up with smaller drivers and it was hardly possible to adjust the headrests in a way that the requirement of the rule was fulfilled. The only option would have been to have the tallest AND the smallest driver of the team sitting in the car during tech to check if the adjustment range was sufficient. This would have meant that scrutineering would take once more even longer. So there was a minimum adjustment range OR a minimum height given which is very reasonable in my opinion. Quite a lot of teams aren't really aware of how important the headrest is for safety!

This is just my personal opinion. I'm not part of the rules committee, but worked as a scrutineer at FS Germany and FS Austria last year and this was part of the feedback me and a couple of other scrutineers gave to the rules committee. I was really hoping for this rules change and I think it was made in quite a reasonable way.

[AxelRipper]

Being on a team who's tallest and shortest drivers respectively are 6'1" and 5'4", we've designed pretty much to this for the past few years anyways, and it does become a bit of a problem, but it is doable.

One thing that I figured would be implemented last year after the discussions we had in tech was a closer definition of "near vertical." What does near vertical mean? I think we were ~10-15 degrees off vertical, and were told that this wasn't "near vertical" enough.

[Bemo]

Good point Axel, I also don't like this rule. "Near vertical" is something you shouldn't write into a rulebook. Rules should be as clear and precise as possible. If the rules would say "max. +/-5° from vertical" it would be hard to do an exact measurement but at least there would be something clear you could design to.
But as a team you can just build the headrest vertical to avoid any discussions, I don't see any disadvantage from that http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

[Decker]

You make some good points Bemo. Thanks for the input

[MCoach]

Originally posted by AxelRipper:
Being on a team who's tallest and shortest drivers respectively are 6'1" and 5'4", we've designed pretty much to this for the past few years anyways, and it does become a bit of a problem, but it is doable.


Never mind the drivers that sit in the seat differently. Custon seat inserts bring their own pain to the game.


The "near vertical" rule is at the discrestion of the judge, currently. Is 10 degrees too far? 5 degrees? 2 degrees?
I mean, depeding on the how "near" we are talking, some may be strict enough to say that 2 degrees is too much.
I can understand the reasoning, as an angled head rest allows the head to roll back or be compressed (if leaned forward) during impact which is considerable safety concern. I think it would be worth clearly defining this rule, but at the same times agree with Bemo, to just design to vertical, to avoid confrontation, AND to aid driver safety.

[TMichaels]

Bemo is right:
This rule has been introduced, because there were endless discussions at several events usually in time critical situations like in dynamic event queues about the head rest.
This caused a lot of frustration on both sides and therefore this has been made more clear. Although I agree that "near vertical" is not very precise, I agree with Bemo and say: Just make it vertical. Why take a risk? There is no performance gain.

[Pete Marsh]

I doubt performance is the motivation for an angled head rest.

Shorter drivers tend to sit further forward and need the head rest forward as well. The idea is to have it angled such that as the contact point moves lower, it is also further forward.

Does the "near vertical" refer to the surface of the padding, or the structure? We had considered opposing tapers such that the contact surface of the padding would be vertical, but height adjustment also accomplished length adjustment.

The motivation here is to avoid needing multiple pads to suit different drivers. An easy stuff up and DNF (or black flag stop anyway) in enduro that would be nice to eliminate.

Pete

[Bemo]

I'd say the "near vertical" only refers to the surface of the padding. You are completely free in the design of the fixture of the padding as long as you can convince the scrutineers it is sufficiently secured.
As stated before the intend of the "near vertical" rule is that the head of the driver doesn't tend to roll upwards the headrest resulting in neck injury.
If I understand you correctly you want to attach the padding to a angled surface so by adjusting it downwards it also moves forward (which makes sense http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif). The concern could be that when the helmet hits the padding, the whole padding is pushed upwards be the rearward force. So you have to keep that in mind to secure it against upwards moving in a way which satifies the scrutineers.

Once more: Only my personal opinion, nothing stated from me in this forum can be considered official http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

[AxelRipper]

Well as out headrest wasn't considered "near vertical" enough when we went to tech the first time in Michigan this past year, our fix was to add some more foam to one side (in our case, the upper portions) of the headrest, so that the surface was nearer to vertical.

[NickFavazzo]

So how does the near vertical rule work if your race engineer wants to run a setup with some dive on the car, unbalanced tyre pressures etc. How far until it is considered not nearly vertical?

[Racer-X]

The near vertical rule isn't as clear as it should be and the rules committee should fix that. With that being said I think we all understand what near vertical means. A tech judge is going to look at the car and use a bit of discretion to determine if it looks vertical. So keep it within a couple degrees and no one is going to have a problem with it. If you are really concerned make the tabs in such a way that you can bend/adjust it.

[Atomsk]

I think we are going to just go to competition and show them that our tallest and shortest driver fit without adjustment and that there is no need for it to be 11" tall. Thats just massive... Anyone think this is just terribly flawed logic?

[JulianH]

Yes. I think your plan will fail completely.

With the same justification a team could come to the competition with a bunch of 5'5" drivers which all would pass the "clearance" test to the Hoop-Hoop Bar but the Percy would not fit into the car.

The size of the Headrest is clearly stated in the rules. And to be honest. That think is ugly but that's about it. It costs you half a point in Aero efficiency and a bit of weight but that's the same for everybody. I'd suggest to save the trouble at scrituneering and get a large head rest...

[Atomsk]

what if the tallest driver is larger than percy? It seems to me that what the rule is trying to accomplish is satisfied if your largest driver (larger than percy) and smallest driver fit with no problem.

[SNasello]

Atomsk,

The rule is trying to stop teams from skimping on a safety critical item, by making miniature headrests that barely only fit one driver size and not providing any provision for adjustment.

Seriously, the rules are the rules and this one is really not worth the time or effort to loose sleep over.

[TMichaels]

Julian and Stefan are right:
Don't take the risk, you will fail in Scrutineering.

[PatClarke]

And guys, how about standing up and taking responsibility for your designs!

You know exactly what 'vertical' and 'near vertical' means, so stop asking for the Rules Committee to 'wet nurse' you.

Would you rather have a situation where you were disqualified because you made your headrest 'vertical' but then changed the ride height at one end or the other and find it is no longer 'vertical' and were protested by some other nitpicking team?

The Rules Committee are not fools. They give good consideration to every rule or rule change.

Pat

[Michael Royce]

Guys,
I admit I was the one who wrote that wording and Pat is correct! The reason is that if we specify an exact angle, an over zealous tech inspector could decide to get his/her angle gauge out, and we did not want that to happen. Or worse still, some over ambitious team is going to protest another team.

And I also admit that I was the one who came up with the idea of giving you the option of either an adjustable head restraint or a large fixed one. We, as scrutineers, were fed up with the teams not following the rules on head restraints, a basic safety consideration to prevent neck injuries, and did not want a repeat of the 2007 Helsinki MIS lambasting that we got. As scrutineers, we want you to go home to your mothers, fathers, girl friends, boy friends, etc. in the same physical condition you had when you arrived.

The head restraint must have a minimum width of 6 inches. A fixed head restraint must have a minimum area of 36 sq. inches, which with the requirement that the helmet/head restraint contact point must be a minimum of 2 inches from any edge, there is a "sweet spot" only 2 inches x 2 inches in the middle. Pretty small. We used the sitting height differences between a 5% female and a 95% male to require an adjustment of 7 inches for an adjustable head restraint. Add that 7 inches to a head restraint with a zero inch high "sweet spot" and you have an 11 inch tall fixed head restraint. That is only 5 inches taller than a minimum size adjustable one! We believe that a tall fixed head restraint will be largely hidden behind the driver and his/her helmet so will have no real effect on aero.

So get the safety things out of the way, have several thicknesses of padding attached with Velcro for the head restraint to get that minimum 1 inch fore-aft clearance, and spend your time on other "performance" items.

[Charles Kaneb]

Our headrest this year is rules-compliant and doesn't look too big when installed on the car. It appeared massive compared to previous designs but ended up lighter.