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You can Lead A Racer to Water, but you can't make him think
Here at the SRP shop, we have been following this thread with great interest. There's probably no more I can add to it that hasn't been added already, with the possible exception of a couple of anecdotes tht underscore that no one person or category has cornered the market on stupidity when it comes to lack of common sense in using safety gear.
I received an email a few months back from a person who wanted to know the price of all the safety gear for making an APBA Kilo run. Obviously, something like that is going to vary depending upon the type of boat (capsuled, non-capsuled) and category (inboard, Outboard, opc, unlimited...whatever). In this particular case, the guy was looking at a special event record with an outboard electric in a homemade, open cockpit boat, so it was pretty easy to default to general safety rule requirements based on the speed he was intending to go. I sent him a price quote based upon both what was required and what would also be highly recommended (helmet restraint, cut suit, etc). The guy wrote back and reamed me because he couldn't possibly afford the minimum of $450 for a lifejacket and under $200 for helmet, let alone all those other things 'he didn't really NEED'.
The last picture I saw of the guy, he was blasting along on some lake with a big outboard on the back of his homemade picklefork boat wearing a baseball cap, and shirtless. No word on his kilo efforts to date.
Then, there was the inboard racer who decided to build his own air mask. While there is nothing preventing someone fom doing that, the contraption that he made was not only Rube Goldberg at best, but the thing weighed about 4 lbs. I can't imagine what kind of stress that would have on your neck muscles just in a typical racing environment. And God help you if you ever got in a serious accident with it.
Finally, there was the gentleman who weighed 145 lbs but wanted a jacket that had sufficient flotation to float a 165 lb guy. He also was requesting that we put a number of pockets on the front of the jacket and on the leg bands. When I asked him what the pockets were for, it turned out he wanted to put lead in them so that he didn't have to bolt all the lead to the floor of his boat. One I convinced him that this was not only ill-advised but against his category rules, he opted for a more conventional lifejacket configuration.
The point I would like to make is that while we as racers can do as much as we can to educate non-racers who buy our stuff to wear proper safety equipment and take the necessary precautions to enjoy their toys in a safe matter, there's unfortunately little we can do to keep some folks from becoming finalists in this year's Darwin Awards. We can make and sell the best safety equipment in the world, but it does no good if a driver is willing to blow the Family christmas Budget on a new prop, but balks at the cost of a new lifejacket or a decent air mask. Some people just cannot be helped from their own lack of common sense. Sometimes, the hardest thing is to save boat racers from themselves.
Let's be careful out there.
R-19
Here at the SRP shop, we have been following this thread with great interest. There's probably no more I can add to it that hasn't been added already, with the possible exception of a couple of anecdotes tht underscore that no one person or category has cornered the market on stupidity when it comes to lack of common sense in using safety gear.
I received an email a few months back from a person who wanted to know the price of all the safety gear for making an APBA Kilo run. Obviously, something like that is going to vary depending upon the type of boat (capsuled, non-capsuled) and category (inboard, Outboard, opc, unlimited...whatever). In this particular case, the guy was looking at a special event record with an outboard electric in a homemade, open cockpit boat, so it was pretty easy to default to general safety rule requirements based on the speed he was intending to go. I sent him a price quote based upon both what was required and what would also be highly recommended (helmet restraint, cut suit, etc). The guy wrote back and reamed me because he couldn't possibly afford the minimum of $450 for a lifejacket and under $200 for helmet, let alone all those other things 'he didn't really NEED'.
The last picture I saw of the guy, he was blasting along on some lake with a big outboard on the back of his homemade picklefork boat wearing a baseball cap, and shirtless. No word on his kilo efforts to date.
Then, there was the inboard racer who decided to build his own air mask. While there is nothing preventing someone fom doing that, the contraption that he made was not only Rube Goldberg at best, but the thing weighed about 4 lbs. I can't imagine what kind of stress that would have on your neck muscles just in a typical racing environment. And God help you if you ever got in a serious accident with it.
Finally, there was the gentleman who weighed 145 lbs but wanted a jacket that had sufficient flotation to float a 165 lb guy. He also was requesting that we put a number of pockets on the front of the jacket and on the leg bands. When I asked him what the pockets were for, it turned out he wanted to put lead in them so that he didn't have to bolt all the lead to the floor of his boat. One I convinced him that this was not only ill-advised but against his category rules, he opted for a more conventional lifejacket configuration.
The point I would like to make is that while we as racers can do as much as we can to educate non-racers who buy our stuff to wear proper safety equipment and take the necessary precautions to enjoy their toys in a safe matter, there's unfortunately little we can do to keep some folks from becoming finalists in this year's Darwin Awards. We can make and sell the best safety equipment in the world, but it does no good if a driver is willing to blow the Family christmas Budget on a new prop, but balks at the cost of a new lifejacket or a decent air mask. Some people just cannot be helped from their own lack of common sense. Sometimes, the hardest thing is to save boat racers from themselves.
Let's be careful out there.
R-19
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