The Right Driving Suit

By Meghan Frazier

Stock Car Racing Magazine

"Safety gear is like insurance nobody really wants to buy it," says RaceQuip's John Schneider. However, as a race car driver, your firesuit is one of the most important purchases you will make. So, why is it that many drivers build their car first, spend thousands of dollars on high horsepower engines and components but only have pennies left to spend on a firesuit? Unfortunately, as the saying goes, if it weren't required, many drivers wouldn't use it.

There are a few things you need to know before you go to your local race shop and buy the cheapest suit you can find because you are now race-car poor. For starters, you need to know the levels of protection your firesuit can provide.

"Everybody wants to come in and buy on price alone," Schneider says. "The biggest problem is you have a quality end and you have a low quality end. There isn't much in between. The low quality exists because everybody wants to go fast. A lot of people do an injustice to the consumer by trying to sell on price alone. Most people coming in hear "fire retardant" or "fire resistant" and think they are safe. The consumer does need to do a little bit of footwork."

SFI Ratings

This footwork consists of finding out first if your series requires you to have an SFI-approved suit. The SFI Foundation is a non-profit organization that has developed standards for safety apparel. Manufacturers must have materials and components tested by independent labs before they receive SFI certification for a specific item. For driver's suits, SFI standards focus on Thermal Protective Performance (TPP) and flammability.

The TPP rating of each suit comes from the result of certain lab tests to determine how long a specific material will protect a driver from a second-degree burn at a specified temperature. For example, according to the Racer Wholesale Racing Safety Equipment catalog, a 3.2A/5 rated g-force suit that consists of three layers of DuPont Nomex has a minimum TPP rating of 19. This means the estimated time until a second-degree burn occurs is 9.5 seconds. Bob Mantell of Racer Wholesale says a driver should first check with the sanctioning body to find out if there are certain requirements for firesuits.

"It may accept SFI certification or have its own guidelines. For example, in a given racing classification, it could accept any driver's suit that meets a certain SFI rating or it could specify a minimum number of layers of a certain material, or both. You will need to know these rules before you buy," Mantell said.

Well Suited

OK, you know you need an SFI-approved suit. So where do you go from there? "There are different suits for different applications," says John Dambrose of Team Simpson Racing Inc. "The first thing you want to look at is what type of suit is most suitable for your racing, race car or type of series you are running. Sizing and colors are actually the last things to decide."

"It might be wise to go into buying a firesuit with some information already established for the manufacturer to determine what will be the best suit for you and your racing. Some questions you might want to ask yourself are:

" What kind of car are you racing?

" What kind of track do you normally run on?

" What level or division?

" Are your races a short 30 laps or a long 200 laps?

"The right suit is really starting out with a multi-layer suit," Schneider says. "There is always the consumer who wants an entry-level suit. When was the last time you were in a fire and the fire said, "This guy is entry level, let's go easy on him." A fire is a fire.

"Though if you do want a single-layer suit, manufacturers still offer them. We have a single-layer suit, but we will tell you what you're getting with that single-layer suit," says Schneider. Today many manufacturers go by the SFI rating rather than how many layers a suit consists of.

"Mine may be a two layer and the other guy's may be a three layer because we are using different materials," says Bob Stroud of Stroud Safety. "Bottom line is they all pass the SFI test. That is the reason we go by a standard testing, not layers. SFI ratings go from one to five, all the way up to 15 and 20. Your 15s and 20s are strictly for drag racing and Bonneville’s," Stroud says. Most manufacturers will recommend you go with at least a five-rated suit for stock car-type racing. Sparco doesn't even make a suit that is lower than the SFI five rating.

Creature Comforts

A few years back, Jeff Gordon and Bobby Labonte broke tradition and went with Sparco suits.

"We take all the information given to us by the professional drivers and actually make that our standard suit," says Chad Liberto of Sparco. "Every year we evolve our standard suit to reflect what is happening at the top level of racing so that same suit can be purchased by the Saturday night guy."

While other manufacturers offer a range of suit options, from one-piece to the two-piece jacket and pant combination, Sparco sticks with the one-piece version only.

"It is for safety reasons," Liberto says. However, with the SFI regulations on making suits, having a two-piece suit may not be as dangerous as it once was thought to be. Stroud says the SFI requires a minimum of 8 inches in overlap between the jacket and pant. Many drivers, other than drag racers, like the versatility of a two-piece suit. On those balmy race nights, you can take the jacket off between heats and features.

As far as comfort, manufacturers are coming up with many options including gussets and stretchable materials at the waist so that the driver can concentrate on the task at hand and not on his suit binding at his shoulders. Simpson offers a 180- and 360-degree shoulder gusset, as well as a lower-back expandable gusset, both made of fire-retardant Nomex material.

When it comes to the fit of your firesuit, Stroud suggests that you keep it on the baggy side. "The further away you can keep that heat, the better off you are," Stroud says.

Perfect Fit