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The prior owner had roll bar pads installed along the entire roll bar down tube. A little overkill, but OK. As a result, when when the car gets carried in by the tow truck after an "event" the roll bar pads are sometimes destroyed by the tow truck lift straps. So now I have been thinking of installing head restraints on my Butler seat and shortening the length of the pads. How long do they need to be? What I am wondering is if I use a HANS (required) and install head restraints do I even need roll bar pads? If so, where? How far down the down tube? I am all for safey - don't get me wrong I just don't want to be at the mercy of the interpetations of the excessively exhuberant tech inspector of the day, (if that is possible). I looked in the GCR and could not find anything specific about where roll bar pads are needed to be installed, only that they are required.

I was just looking at this yesterday:

GCR pages 112-113 that SRF rules refer to:

G. BASIC DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS
1. All portions of the roll cage subject to contact by the driver
must be padded with a minimum 1 inch of material. Padding
that meets or exceeds SFI 45.1 or FIA 8857-2001 (curved
padding), or SFI 45.2 or FIA sports car head rest material (flat
padding) specification is recommended.

So however a tech inspector would interpret that.

I found this in section 9.4

Forward braces and portions of the main hoop subject to contact by
the driver’s helmet (as seated normally and restrained by seatbelt/
shoulder harness) shall be padded with non-resilient material such
as Ethafoam® or Ensolite® with a minimum thickness of one‑half
(1/2) inch. Padding meeting SFI spec 45.1 or FIA 8857-2001 is
strongly recommended.

*Edit*...Woops...Rob beat me to it

Hint: Tell the tow operator to knock off the pads and they will be happy to do it.

I believe in having as much between my head and the roll bars as possible. So I run the padding from the down tube to the mirrors and have the head headrest, also. My car was used for some training at The Ridge in July and the instructor said he removes the padding if the car has to be lifted. Although it is not required it is recommended that you use the SFI approved padding. I also recommend putting a cover over it to protect it from the elements and from scraping as you climb in and out.

I'd put rollbar padding on any bar within 18" of my head. Go watch some videos and see how far people move in a crash. that includes most of that bar down the side.

Robert Mumm wrote:"All portions of the roll cage subject to contact by the driver"

Note it does not say "drivers head or helmet". This suggests to me that you should have coverage along most of the side tubes to protect the arms from hitting the cage in an accident and not just a couple of small pads near the head.

That is a good point about arms, hands, etc, never thought of that aspect. I actually don't mind installing the padding along the entire down tube roll bar (the extra weight can easily be offset by skipping the next double cheeseburger ) As an engineer, I always prefer simple black and white answers with little room for "interpetation". As I said in the original post, I don't relish being at the mercy of some tech inspector.

Jerry A. wrote:That is a good point about arms, hands, etc, never thought of that aspect. I actually don't mind installing the padding along the entire down tube roll bar (the extra weight can easily be offset by skipping the next double cheeseburger ) As an engineer, I always prefer simple black and white answers with little room for "interpetation". As I said in the original post, I don't relish being at the mercy of some tech inspector.

But when you are engineering, do you design just to meet the requirements of the code / inspector?

Don't forget that nasty area below the steering wheel and the bottom of the aluminum dash corners; good place to use up any left-over padding (bump your thighs/knees on that and you'll know why!) I also prefer the FIA padding that's a bit more square than the SFI version and just a couple of bucks more. The other thing I did use was some wide Velco to fasten the padding to the roll-bars; easier to pull off if you need a lift tow (and avoid the nastiness of tie-wraps which alway seem to land in the wrong place if you hurry in or out of the car.)

http://www.rollbarpadding.com/prod_FIA8857.html