Safety first: NASCAR implements new rules for 2015

For the first time, those officials are now required to wear helmets as a safety precaution.
 
Helmets will also be required for those driving the pace car during an event, as well as officials working the pit entrance areas, NASCAR spotters (there are a minimum of two, maximum of three stationed at various points around the track during events) and the official working the stop/go sign at the exit of pit road.
 
And although they are working pit road from the non-active side of the pit wall, those four officials will continue to wear helmets as well.
 
Any official working in close proximity to vehicles during an event will also now be required to wear a flame-retardant suit.
 
Participants that serve in an honorary capacity, such as driving the pace car prior to the start of an event, or waving the green flag to begin the race, won’t be required to wear helmets because of the limited amount of time they are in those positions. However, a NASCAR spokesperson said such instances are evaluated on a case-by-case basis and changes could be made if officials felt it was necessary.
 
Officials working in the flagstand have long been the targets of debris, with everything from rubber buildup tossed from tires to parts of cars that become dislodged due to damage posing a safety hazard.
 
John Patalak, director, safety and structure engineering for the sanctioning body, told NASCAR.com that he doesn’t foresee a change in the system that could result in the use of technology to replace the flagman, however.
 
“I think it’s an important part of the heritage of our sport and they still serve a very important purpose,” he said. “As technology becomes more and more complex and we use it for many things, you always have to have other options in place. That’s not something that’s been discussed.”
 
The addition of helmets and fire suits isn’t the only safety-related change put into place for the 2015 season, which officially begins with the Feb. 22 running of the 57th Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway.
 
“Probably the largest thing that people have heard the most about but that really is a large safety is the addition of the Pro trailer and the system that kind of takes officials out of harms way on pit road and allows us to officiate from that standpoint,” Patalak said.
 
“It’s an opportunity that we identified as a way to just continually make things better, make them safer,” he said. “In many cases, we have the opportunity to be proactive on things we identify; this is one of those situations.”
 
Before this season, pit road officials went across the wall during pit stops to ensure that teams weren’t violating specific rules. Now, only four will roam the non-active side, while eight others will be housed nearby where they will use video replays to monitor pit road activities.
 
The evaluation of safety protocol and procedures is ongoing, and not discussed only after the season has ended. Most are ongoing, such as changes to the safety harness systems used by drivers.
 
Harnesses will no longer be mounted to points on the car body (chassis) and will no longer pass through an opening in the seat between a driver’s legs.
 
Patalak said the harness change was “an incremental step in safety improvement.”
 
“We’re not addressing a particular problem or issue but it brings just overall improvements and optimization of the seatbelts and seats for the driver,” he said. “When we look at issues like that, that’s just part of the continued march forward on making things safer.
 
“There are other situations that require immediate attention. We just have to evaluate each of those different situations as they come up and present themselves.
 
“We can put the bolts that hold the seat belts in the seat … exactly where they need to be for optimal performance of the restraint system.”
 
Because car builds may differ slightly, not all belts had been attached in exactly the same spot. “So you have to move an inch here or an inch there,” he said. “By bringing all of that inside the seat, we no longer have to work around those parts and pieces. We’re down to the level now that we’re trying to tune the restraint system literally fractions of an inch for small gains.”
 
That also eliminates the concern of hardware from the harness becoming stuck or cut by sharp edges. And it allows safety workers to remove the seat and driver as a single unit should it become necessary following a crash.
 
“If the seat belts attach to the chassis we can’t move the seat and driver (simultaneously) because we’re rigidly fixed to the vehicle,” Patalak said. “If we bring all of the seat belts inside the seat, then we can move those things as a unit if we ever were to find that necessary.”
 
Sprint Cup drivers are now required to use either a seven- or nine-point safety harness as well. It will be incorporated into the XFINITY Series for ’16 and the Camping World Truck Series in ’17.
 
The difference is the addition of a third lap belt that goes between a driver’s legs and is known as the negative G belt. Its function is to protect a driver in the event of a rollover.
 
The change, Patalak said, “allows us … to further optimize our anti-submarine belts, which are the belts they’ve always had between their legs for frontal impacts.
 
“It really gets to the point where we are really (improving) seatbelts to fractions of an inch as far as where they’re located, to squeeze out the last bit of performance from the system.”
 
Any change, even those that address safety issues, can impact competition, and that’s something Patalak said the sanctioning body is keenly aware of as it looks at each situation.
 
A good example, he said, involves the installation of window nets, which can no longer be attached to the car’s B pillar.
 
“That was a rule change made for the purpose of safety however it has an aerodynamic impact on the race car,” he said. “It's something that we needed to make happen, but it was something we had to consider very carefully because it was a tool that the teams have come to use to tune their race cars aerodynamically.
 
“So we have to always look at cost and competition when we’re making changes to safety; all three are packed together to be successful at the end of the day.”

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