| Representatives from US championships NASCAR, Indy Racing League and Champ Car attended the FIA Institute’s Open Cockpit Research Group, which has been held in the North America or Canada on an annual basis. This was followed by a meeting between the FIA Institute and US national sporting association ACCUS.
Andy Mellor said: “It is important that we meet up with the major US motor racing championships and bodies. The share of information can vastly promote safety in motor sport.”
The FIA Institute was also invited to give presentations at the ICMS, which took place at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in the week following the US Grand Prix. Around 50 delegates gathered together to hear presentations from the top engineers and doctors working in motor sport safety. Mellor and FIA Institute Head of Research Hubert Gramling presented some of the Institute’s current work.
Gramling gave a presentation on head and neck support guidelines. Currently, the HANS device is the only FIA-approved product on the market but the FIA wants to encourage competitors of the HANS device to produce equivalent systems in order to encourage competition in the market place.
At the moment there is no approval system in place for any product other than HANS. As such, the FIA Institute has been working on a parallel process for approving non-HANS products. The outcome will increase the uptake of head and neck support devices in all motor racing championships.
Andy Mellor gave presentations on ear accelerometers and the youth helmet project, which is nearing completion leading to the publication by Snell of a new crash helmet standard. The helmet, which has been developed by the FIA Institute, is the first high performance helmet to be designed specifically for children and teenagers. |
