LOOK UP!

Ok, maybe the title is hokey...hope it at least made you grin.

This purpose of this off-season article is to get you to look at your racecar with you in it, wearing your helmet, to check the clearance between the top of your helmet and the rollbar halo.

The suggestion I am going to make on this is really easy to measure...if you can not slip a 2x4, the tall side upright (3.5" and more is better), between your helmet and the bottom of the halo bar, that might not be ok.

Whether you are driving an open cockpit car (sprint, midget, etc.) or a closed cockpit car (stock car, modified, etc.), the dangers are the same...should your head/helmet come in contact with whatever is on the other side of your halo bar, it is not going to be ok. In violent crashes, the drivers body stretches and your restraints stretch...both potentially causing you to "grow" vertically, and in this case, that is not a good thing. Having your body trying to drive your head into the clay or the roof panel like a nail can be catastrophic for your neck. Can you say "paralysis?"

Please take just five minutes and check this out...it just might be what prevents you from a spinal injury that might not come out ok. It really bothers me to watch open cockpit cars pull onto the racing surface with helmets too high...sometimes even protruding above the top of the halo...let's encourage the sanctioning bodies to do their jobs and enforce existing rules!

Remember, at the end of the day, everyone goes home standing up!