Attention all Karters!…..Steve Tillett Warning on New Kart Seat CIK Regulations
By Karting1 ~ August 7th, 2006. Filed under: Kart Racing News.
Karting guru Steve Tillett (the man behind the famous kart seats) has dropped a bombshell on the karting community by announcing the intentions of the CIK to introduce headrests to kart seats!
And despite the fact that Steve stands to make a fortune from such a regulation he has stood firmly against the proposals and made his voice heard on the karting forum
This is what the new seat proposals will probably look like -
Steve says on the forum:
‘The FIA safety committee wants us to use a headrest on all karts, partly for whiplash but mostly for rollover protection.
After the big heavy plastic back bumpers that fall off cost a fortune and are flexible in hot weather and stiff in the cold, their next mission is to introduce headrests on all kart seats.’
‘I am trying to stop it but unless there is outcry from the masses you can see it happening. There were not many kart racers on the FIA safety committee (Myself and Russell Anderson)and some of the people that are there seem to have a need to justify their jobs by coming up with new ways to inconvenience us.’
I think it is fair to say that the karting community is sick to death of ruling bodies trying to turn karting from the rawest form of motorsports into bumper cars, and I’d say headrests is just taking the mickey! Rear plastics was a step too far already but now the CIK seems to be pushing it’s luck, so perhaps it’s time the CIK faced a flood of protests.
If we don’t put a stop to this now I think we can reasonably expect seatbelts, rollover cages, suspension and differentials to be made mandatory on karts!
So if you don’t want karting to be turned into a health and safety man’s wet dream then please make your voice heard here, and we will forward your words to the CIK. Also you can send an email to the CIK at cik@fia.com
Related posts:
August 8th, 2006 at 11:30 am
This new seat must not be allowed into karting as a ‘mandatory’ measure. Apart from the fact that I believe that the seat will not assist safety on it’s own in any way, I also belive it has the possiblity to cause further injury to the driver and other competitors. I firmly believe that the headrest would act as a pivot point that could cause the karting equvalent of a ‘high side’ flip that could not be controlled.
The extra cost involved will be enough to put people off entering our sport, and more to the point will even cause an exodus of people in MSA controlled racing. I know my son will never be using a kart with this type of seat installed.
This may seem a hollow threat, but I assure you that my son has viewed the seat and given me a drivers point of view, and he has said “no way”. We are not big hitters in the world of karting, but we are doing extremely well on a very small budget. James is currently leading the Motors TV Ultimate Karting Challenge in the Mini Max class, as well as the MBKC Club championship at 3 Sisters near wigan. I support James myself from a very small wage packet, and this type of money spinning con is just about as much as I can take. Karting is already out of touch for most working class people, and if it wasn’t for the support of my wife and daughter allowing such a large proportion of our income going to help James, we could not carry on.
To finish off my protest, I will just say that it is my opinion that this measure will be the straw that breaks the camels back for many people who race on very small budgets, and turn the base level of British Motor Sport into another elitist sport, only accessible to the wealthy or sponsored.
please do all you can to put an end to this foolishness.
August 8th, 2006 at 7:22 pm
What are they thinking? This is just going to make costs higher! We’re a team that can hardly afford kart racing nevermind spare karts and so on. This is just foolish, if they are going to do something about whiplash, make everyone wear neck protectors! They make all the Junior drivers like me wear them, and most of the Seniors do aswell. There have been no cases of whiplash, were in most cases there would have been as I have witnessed. But not the headrest, karting is already too expensive as it is, and we can only make it because of my family’s sacrifice of time and money. We don’t have any sponsors, and again, karting is just turning into a sport for the people with money. But for now, I’m focusing on the Canadian Karting Nationals! And if I do well, see you in Portugal for the World Finals!
August 8th, 2006 at 8:38 pm
[...] Read the whole thing on Karting1. [...]
August 8th, 2006 at 10:00 pm
I agree with what Tony said about the headrest becoming a pivot point of sorts, I can see far more barrel rolls happening when a kart fitted with the head rest seat. Currently If a kart is in an accident and the driver is thrown from it, the kart will land upside down and most likely stay that way until it grinds to a halt. With a head rest seat fitted, the centre of gravity of an inverted kart is much higher. This will surely cause a kart to violently barrel roll much further than one that has the traditional seat.
August 9th, 2006 at 7:47 am
This is ridiculous. Not only will the introduction of the higher seat cause MORE injury to the karter by creating a pivot point – it is also going to encourage less safe karters to cause even larger accidents. I don’t believe that this will allow a karter to see karts approaching in their blind spots. We need to put a stop to these beaurocrats from trying to impose ridiculous mandatory standards that drive up the cost of karting – and will only result in more karters driving unsanctioned events.
August 10th, 2006 at 3:39 pm
THATS CRAZY! its dangerous, it looks horrible and will stop you from bracing and leaning back in youre seat when braking.
if the fia are that worried about whiplash the answer is a neck brace!!! there a tenth of the price and protect from any angle of impact even when you fall out the kart. the only time a headrest will “protect” you is if you are sat facing forward and upright and if you are hit exacly from behind witch is pretty unlikely if youre in the middle of a crash.
theres no way im ever using a seat like that.
August 10th, 2006 at 3:41 pm
were gona end up driving things that resemble mobility scooters if we dont stop this here
August 11th, 2006 at 3:47 am
Hi im an australian karter. I race a class in australia called leopard light using the IAME leopard engine. At present because of costs involved in CIK racing we no longer have CIK in australia. the closest class to cik that runs on a regular basis is the class i race. we use a controlled CIK MG FZ yellow tyre and and we are only about half a second slower than ICA karts. Because of the classes being so closley matched i would be certain accidents would be the same. Following the result of a massive accident that occured barely a week ago from today that i unforunatley had to witness while racing, a 3 kart “super’ accident occured where one frame snapped at the right front kingpin and another kart rolled to about a hieght of 5 to 6ft in the air. the driver helicoptered in the air and such the ferocity that his boot came off also. from this accident and how he departed the kart in mid air a full length seat would no doubt would have seen him either killed or serioucsly injured at best. this is because as he departed from the kart he swung back over the kart. had there been a head rest there it would have inevitably caught him up and he would too also be flung around with the kart and slamed against the spectator fence.
This accident occur at a speed between 90-100km/h. Thankfully the only injuries suffered bad brusing and a cut. For the class i race if headrest seats were introduced i will never race while they are around. with the amount of roll overs and freak accidents we have seen in the last 12 months in our class with full fields there will be a lot more serious injuries to come.
August 11th, 2006 at 3:19 pm
Are these guys nuts?
I can agree with everything that has already been said. For once the CIK should look at the big picture. I am certain the CIK has published a report stating the “benefits” of this bumper car style seat. I would like to understand their reasoning. It better not be for neck safety since they do not require neck collars.
We the racers MUST keep OUR sport OUR sport. I’m with all the low budget race teams that are fortunate enough to have wifes and family that allow us to race. Just keep adding cost and and the real racers will slowley become extinct.
Remember what karting was and where it is today. Thank god it is still a man (woman) and a machine pitting themselves against others. Thriving on the competition and braving the dangers through trust and respect for their fellow competitors.
You can throw all the plastic you want into the sport but it will never make a kart as safe as one with a skilled pilot behind the wheel.
We can allow OUR sport to become high tec bumper cars so the rich brats can go out and have a slugfest while keeping the lawyers at bay.
We are RACERS simply said. Take the thrill away and we all might as well take up basket weaving.
August 29th, 2006 at 12:57 pm
You have to be kidding me. We have been budget racers for 8 years and love the sport so much so that everything else is secondary, but this is something that would turn people like us away from this great form of motorsport. My brother and I are a low budget team that can’t afford the best engines and the likes that would require any kart to go well with such a monstrosity in the middle of it.
This is a major step towards totally killing of the future racers.
Please don’t kill our passion for karting.
September 5th, 2006 at 12:54 am
This Is REDICULOUS.Karting is Supposed to be a thrilling, Hardcore motorsport, Not some $3.75 a race deal at Mountasia.As Bob Said Plastic will never be as safe as a well experienced driver.Karting has been around for a long time and we would like to keep it that way.This new idea with the seat will probably end up making injurys worse.
Please allow us to stay in the sport by keeping ideas like this away.
September 21st, 2006 at 10:03 am
When I saw this suggestion for a high-back seat for karts my first reaction was to look for the date to see if it had been issued on 1 Apr. But no, it’s for real and smacks of the ‘nanny state’ culture that surrounds both the EU and the country in which we live. It is very disappointing to realise that the rule-makers in the CIK are so out of touch with the classes for which they are making the rules; high-back seats are not the panacea for whiplash that the CIK seem to think. Yes, there will inevitably be some collisions – the full-on rear impact being the only one – where such a seat may prevent, or reduce whiplash, but in 4 years of running my children in Cadets/Minimax/Junior Rotax I have seen only one such accident. Even then the driver, having gone into the tyres backwards at relatively high speed, came part way out of the seat over the seat back, got up and walked off! Yet I have seen many other roll-over or side-impact accidents with drivers thrown out, or partly out, of the kart where this high-back seat would have caused injury; going into tyres forwards or front/back corner first often results in the kart rotating wildly and with a driver part way out of the seat the high-back could act as a fulcrum for the neck. With the head being so relatively heavy and the high-back seat tending to keep the body of the driver in the kart the potential for worse neck injuries would be increased. Such a pivot action would also occur if the head-rest portion of the seat back wasn’t correctly positioned for the driver’s head.
As for roll-overs, if the high-back were made strong enough to not collapse during roll-overs then the extra weight, high above the centre of gravity of the kart would increase the risk of such a roll-over, not to mention the detrimental effect on handling. Additionally, during roll-over accidents the best place for the driver is out of the kart and not partially restrained by a high-back seat – if you watch MotoGP, and the like, the worst injuries occur when the rider doesn’t separate cleanly from his bike during an accident and the bike rolls over him.
I am also concerned about the effect this seat would have on drivers’ attitudes to contact racing. The more enclosed the driver the safer they feel and thus the more likely they are to not care about contact with other karts; just look at the amount of contact in BTCC races compared with F1.
If we really want karts to be as safe as possible then we restrict all the engines to give no more than 10mph, surround the whole kart with a safety barrier (as per corporate karts), introduce the high-back seat, seat belts, the F1 HANS system and a padded steering wheel! Oh, and a ‘Sumo wrestling’ padded suit!!! If the CIK want to get hot under the collar about safety issues, let’s get them to lean on MSAs to better police driver reaction to yellow flags. Slow down and be prepared to stop. What, and get overtaken by the rest of the pack?!!
Finally, while there will be a signficant cost to this, I am not going to use that issue as a reason for disapproving of this suggestion; if there was a tangible overall safety benefit then I would be in full agreement and blow the cost; my kids safety is important. But there is no overall benefit. So let’s keep karting simple and not develop them into mini cars.
Keep up the good work Steve!
October 23rd, 2006 at 8:40 pm
we didn’ t have bumping karts. I think if this seats comes a rule to all drivers and all classis many drivers stop karting.
October 25th, 2006 at 3:13 am
That thing is got to be the ugliest damn thing I have ever seen on a kart. First of all it will cost a hell of alot of money and probably wont do jack. Also from how still that thing looks it wont let the kart flex at all. All I can say is that if it is made mandatory I will still race I will just not have that stupid ass seat, guess I will be DQed every race.
October 27th, 2006 at 4:06 pm
Not only could these seats be a real danger, but think about the aerodynamic effects. What happens when you need a bigger seat widthways but not in height? That top headrest will act like a drag shute. It is clear that this is even thought to be a rotten apple by the pro’s like steve tillet that would make money out of this, because even they say it would be detrimental to the sport. The MSA are not switching to KF1 next year (nationaly) and only making silly bumpers optional so perhaps the MSA could overrule this obsceneity!
November 1st, 2006 at 2:32 pm
A lot of what people are saying seems to be assumptions about how the seat will react in an accident. I agree with most people, its going to increase the cost of karting, and may only prevent injury in a specific type accident.
But what it needs is testing, and tested against other saftey precautions like a neck brace etc. Just claiming this seat will be a danger by simply looking at it will not catch the eye of the CIK. but we as karters want to be assured that this has been tested in every situation, and if brought out was the only option, and cheaper alternatives did not work effectively.
I hate the look, and personally dont think the benefits are worth it, but im not an expert. Tomorrow im going on an open practice, and say I have an accident which Paralyses me. Imagine how gutted id feel if someone tells me id have walked away with nothing more than a bruised ego had I been sitting in the ugly seat. If this story isnt likely, then scrap the ugly seat idea.
No amount of precautions will make motor racing safe. I just hope CIK balance the need for saftey and cost. (I would not consider racing with out a helmet, and kart suit, both I have no objections to the price. However a fire extinguisher strapped to a kart costing £200 and never used would be pethetic and waste of money)
November 4th, 2006 at 7:29 pm
what’s next traction control anti lock brakes cruise control?
November 20th, 2006 at 12:35 am
What a joke this seat is!
I can’t see it being anything but more dangerous to a driver. With a kart you want to be thrown out the seat in the case of a roll. This thing has a far greater chance of smacking you on your way out.
Not to mention the fact that if you don’t have a very big transporter you’d have to remove the matrosity.
November 29th, 2006 at 2:19 pm
We drivers, teams , factorys etc have to stop this! this guys are killing karting, first it was the engines 4 stroke and lots of other things like the rear bumpers now this?? i hope all of us from all the world who like karting fight againts this attitudes from the cik-fia this things have to stop!
December 9th, 2006 at 6:40 pm
Brilliant idea, I think not! Very dangerous, absolutely!. I reemphasize all the points raised before mine regarding cost and HSE and ask my self several questions with regard to where it will stop. Will the FIA take into account the head height of each driver as some of us are taller than others and the seat would have to take this account. With safety at the re fore front in order for such a ridiculous seat to be safe the driver must be secured in the drive position so with that in mind lets throw in a 5 point race harness aswell, more cost. Tell you what lets just put on some doors as well in case we fall out the side.
Taking a step back lets hope the FIA remember what starts all race drivers careers and why all F1 driver still dabble in a little karting from time to time and as Steve says turning the excite sport of karting into Noddy cars at a country show will destroy the sport irrecoverably.
January 27th, 2007 at 10:01 pm
Best bet is probably to ditch the CIK, like the aussies, and start new kart classes anyway…..What about an open TAG class, with leopards, Rotaxs’, Fireballs all racing at 125cc without seals…..It’d have to bring the rotax engine prices down. It’d be scary if some engines were faster at certain tracks.
The seat would look awful….Nearly as bad as that stupid ‘log’ of a rear bumper!
March 21st, 2007 at 12:35 am
Excellent idea for Cadets. They have been in use for years in Germany (not mandatory but widely used), Recaro being the main supplier (they would not damage their reputation by making an unsafe product). I can see why there is resictance, as it would add development costs for producers (as there are already 2 manufacturers who could supply now) and for comopetitors, but it would dispense with foam neck braces (what a Mickey Mouse way of protecting a spinal cord – ask BMW motorcycles who have tested them).
I am for bringing jart seats into the 1970s.