Racer Suspension
 

Was shocked to read this; Bob is so experienced and knowledgeable as evidenced by his number of #1 qualifiers. I personally think the seat belt rule is pure BS when you consider other sanctioning body rules on safety equipment (i.e. SCCA) have much less stringent time limits but it's kinda like NASCAR, messing with safety equip rules is a sure bet for major penalities. Really sad to see great racers put on the sidelines like this...

http://www.nhraracer.com/content/gen...875&zoneid=175

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What the????? Was anyone else there to see this?

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Wow. A $5000 fine. He can't race again until he pays the fine. Those are some expensive belts.

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What benefit would it be to have fake certification tags?

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I thought I read it says he got a one year suspension as well

Ron

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It did ouch....wouldn't it be more effort and time to "fake" a sfi tag, than just replace the belts.

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The benefit would be to the person selling them. They can take old belts and sell them as new.

I highly doubt Bob would knowingly do something like this. Definitely not worth the trouble over a $50-100 item.

Looks like the fine and suspension was mainly because he didn't allow NHRA to confiscate the belts and the discussion between him and NHRA may have got a little heated.



Correct, but I was referring to after he serves the suspension. Maybe he will appeal and it will get reduced.

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I hope after a cool down period. He appeals it and it gets reduced or taken away completely.
Bob is a great racer and a real nice guy. I'm sure there are 2 sides to this story.

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What is this with the NHRA handing out X-tra large fines and suspensions eerily similar to Nascar...

Does anyone know any details about this?? $15k....
http://i738.photobucket.com/albums/x...ps3170aa4d.jpg


I don't think this is the future vision Wally Parks had for the sport!

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Everybody best be checking everyting REAL CLOSE!
It looks like nhra has decided they can cash in like a lot of governments are doing by levying fines for petty bull shyt?????

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Troy Jr got a win taken away earlier this year for "excessive braking". Not much was said about it though. That rule has been around a long time but I've not heard it enforced much lately either.:cool:

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Bob & Bonnie Dennis have been my friends for over 30 years and he must have had a real jerk for a tech person for Bob not to let them have the seat belt. I also think that the seat belt rule is bs. BTW I have not been to a NHRA event since the National Event Entry went to over $300 and no more single class wins, and don't miss NHRA any.Also I think this deal with Bob & Bonnie is no worse than some Drivers in IHRA running in the middle 6s and faster in the eight mile wearing bluejeans and nylon paints in competition

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Nylon Pants? Outer wear or under wear? Who would admit to wearing those?
Seriously, some seat belt companies re-certify the seat belts for a fee. I wonder if that would be a problem.

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C&P from YB. Probably very lucky he has the magic last name if this is true.

So at the Indy Divisional a friend of mine's rig is parked along the wall of the back stretch of the oval track there. Right near the outside of what would be turn three. I forgot what time, but let's call it 2am, my friends who were asleep in their rig heard "BANG!!!!" Woke up and thought someone had run into their motor home. They look out the window and there's a car out on the circle track that must have been racing or something, but anyway it had found itself into the wall so hard it deployed the airbags and appeared to have totaled the car. After a couple of minutes two occupants emerged, appearing to have been stunned by the impact &/or getting blasted in the face with airbags. Perhaps inebriated, they assessed their totaled car and abandoned it. Multiple officers to the scene, etc.

We were wondering who that was.......

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Should have stuck with the straight line racin!!!!!

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Bob is one of those-Good Ol Boys-still holds the record for-The Alabama 60 mile Moonshine Run:)-hard to fight when you refuse to turn over what nhra wanted

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you know the two year seatbelt rule is a waste of money.i have piles of seat belts in my storage shed. i am in the wrecker buss. i pull cars out of the bayous around houma LA all of the time and when the window is down and the vehicle is not upside down i reach in and hook my winch cable to the stock seat belts all the time and pull it out of the water.now that stock belt is half the size and half the thichness and most of the time 20 years old. about a year ago i posted on my facebook page where i was holding a 1989 olds cutlass completly off the ground with one seat belt winched high in the air from my wrecker.i wish i still had that pic.but i did send it to the emmons bros facebook page.so you tell me that the race harness is weeker than a 20 year old stock belt!!!!!!

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RCI latch belts are about $80 plus 20 recert fee plus 12 to ship them back = $112 for four years use. That comes out to $28 per year. Why would anyone make counterfeit SFE tags for belts?

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I have known Bob and Bugs for many years are they are not the type to counterfeit a SFI tag, especially on seat belts.

Many years ago Impact Racing (Simpson) was caught with counterfeit labels on their equipment.
http://bangshift.com/blog/Epic-Fail-...ed-by-SFI.html

Nevertheless, Bob is not the type to do something like this and if the inspector had an attitude, we all know Bob would have not been gracious if he was being accused of doing so..

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HEY BILL the paints that I am talking about are those light weight paints that look like nylon or some kind of light weight material that you can just put them on over your regular paints before you make your run. Hey if you dont believe me come to Carolina the second weekend in June for the IHRA PRO-AM race and see for yourself

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I fail to see the correlation of someone wearing the wrong pants and a counterfeit sfi tag. That being said I guess nhra wants to make sure you got good belts on before they send you down a crappy track like they had at Vegas.

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NHRA has blown this out of proportion, if they were counterfit Bob had nothing
to do with it. The only thing Bob did wrong was not check the tag to see if it
was the right tag , the tags were not the correct tags for seat belts. How many
of you know the correct tag? I have raced for 40 years and have never checked.
The car never went down the track at Atlanta, when Bob was told of the problem
he put new belts in on the spot. Were the belts less safe because they had the
wrong tag? I dont think so. Bob & Bugs have been loyal and long time customers
of NHRA and this is how they are treated? This is another over reaction by NHRA
and they wonder why the car count is down?

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I think there is a good deal more, to this, than we know. They are both good people. Something evidently got blown way out of proportion here.

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I think Toby may have gotten it correct. NHRA and SFI take counterfeiting those tags seriously. Bob should probably have simply given up the bogus belts and told the tech dept where he bought them. NHRA and SFI could have followed up on it from there. It makes one wonder why he did not want to give up the belts.

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At Indy? Well we just call that "Old School Indy"! Your lucky that car wasn't on its ROOF!

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Interesting that this wasn't posted in the NHRA.com racer section? Wonder why it was tucked in the corner of National Dragster?

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This makes racers look bad especially sportsman racers....I agree with the above, just give the belts up and save the negative publicity on both sides. What a waiste of time. Class racers are not looking for cheat ways out of rules and NHRA has rules to enforce.

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This is an obvious witch hunt on the side of NHRA with their desperate attempt at money grabbing. What will be a real thrill is when chinese made belts ooze their way into the system that get blessed with "legitimate" SFI tags that immediately fail and make a mockery of SFI. Mark my word IT WILL HAPPEN.:eek:

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Do you think Bob wanted to keep the belts to go back to the manufacturer with the problem. Had he given them up he would have no proof. Are you required to surrender these parts?

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They've been known to cut belts out of cars; about 4 years ago a racer (not stock or super stock) failed tech for outdated belts, then went thru tech with borrowed belts and was then caught with the old belts back in. Some of the D2 racers may remember getting your Q time slip and then being pulled over to have belts checked. In this instance the racer was DQ'd for the race but returned to action at a subsequent race. My only point is there must have been 'animated conversation' surrounding the incident and whomever to blame Bob and Bugs are going to pay the price.

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If the reason the racer was unwilling to hand over the belts to NHRA was to have something to return for refund to who he gave is hard earned dollar; the racer has the right to do so.

If NHRA wanted the belts to investigate the counterfeiter they should have offered to reimburse the racer his monetary loss or supply him with a valid set of belts.

If the racer immediately purchased and replaced his belts, had not passed tech NHRA morally has no ground to suspend or fine.
There may be something in the rules but racers pay good money for membership and race entry therefore NHRA should have that in mind. Who are the customers?

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This looks like pay-back for something Bob may have gotten away with in the past ... We should wait to hear Bob's side before we start casting doubt's ... Bob & Bugs are good people and don't deserved to be judged by any of us at this time... Let's wait and see, Who's next ???

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There has to be more to this story and a GOOD reason why Bob did not give up the seat belts.

If Bob purchased belts from a vendor or a manufacturer and they were counterfeit, there is a product liability issue between Bob, the vendor or the manufacturer.

As regards to SFI, they are not that smart either when creating requirements and guidelines for the motorsports industry. I have dealt with them many times on requirement and guidance matters and proven them wrong with actual analysis and studies, nevertheless, they did not care and just implemented the guidance.

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Is it possible that the belts were legal? And the tech guys were mistaken?

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There is something more here than meets the eye.
Mr Dennis has been racing to long to make such a mistake.
We can speculate all we want here but until all the facts are known that's all it is - speculation .

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Sounds like a lot of speculation and that leads to misinformation.

Sammy, stock belts may be strong, but they are not designed for a high-speed crash. The race belts we wear are designed to stretch so as to absorb energy and not cause us internal injury. I doubt factory belts would do this in a crash that is beyond highway speeds.

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I an on suspension for a year so I wont make a comment on this until the suspension is over.
Dan

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I'm curious as to why both of them got suspended. Do they have to pay $5000 each or $5000 for the both of them?

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I can only assume that maybe she is listed as the car owner. In reading about it, it sounds like the total fine is $5000
Chuck

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so why bother to tighten them if they're going to 'stretch' anyway?