WTF-J

Before there were front airbags, side curtain airbags, knee bolsters, crush zones, pre-tensioners, ABS pre-loaders, and the whole raft of occupant protection technologies that are in every new vehicle, there were seatbelts. 

OK, so they are not plain old seatbelts, the WTF-J has the Impact Racing’s 5-point harness including a lost motion cam-lock latching system. 

Impact Racing ("IR") is the new company Bill Simpson founded after leaving Simpson Race Products following NASCAR’s initial assertion that a faulty safety harness was a major contributor to Dale Earnhardt’s death at the 2000 Daytona 500.  (NASCAR amended their findings a year later and noted Earnhardt’s team did not follow Simpson’s recommended installation procedures.  Simpson, a long-time pioneer in advancing the state-of-the-art in automotive safety products, took NASCAR’s early findings very personally.)  It was clear to me that Simpson was attempting to make a statement with IR.

The 3" belts have a center cam-lock that is pretty slick.  The individual belts are plugged in to a center locking point and are released with a turn.   The lock is called a lost motion mechanism as it requires 30° of motion before releasing the belts.  The intent is to prevent inadvertent releases due to the steering wheel or some other motion brushing up against the lock release.

The harnesses also have pads in the shoulder sections for no other reason than they are a lot more comfortable!

In the picture above, if you look at the side of the driver’s seat, you can see how the belts pass through the (shiny) black collars in the seat to the floor mounts.  The collars, along with the neoprene seat fabric are designed to keep the seat from loading up with water in a rainstorm and giving passengers an extended period of wet butt.  Below, you can see how the belt clips into the 7/16" eyelet, what you don’t see is the stud and the 3" structural washer that sits on the other side of the mount.

While not exactly an airbag, I feel better already.  The quality of the materials and workmanship is confidence inspiring.   Another neat feature is that the belts are SFI Certified and have a two year life span.  (Belts older than 2-yrs are not permitted by most racing sanctioning bodies.)   Impact, like most racing equipment manufacturers has a very low cost service to re-web their harness systems with new belts. (Think new belts for 25-30% the cost.)  For a vehicle that is constantly exposed to the elements, this is a very good thing.

Sooooooo, that part is done, now let’s hope I never need them!