Underlayers?

[kbalch]

Given a Nomex 3-layer suit, are most guys wearing the Nomex underlayers, or just going with cotton shirt & shorts? Trying to decide...

Ken

[Andor]

x2

yeah i would also like to know what pple are waring under there Nomex 3-layer suits?!?

[Gerardo]

Everyone has a personal preference. If you think you can get used to having nomex underwear under your 3-layer suit, it is more safe.

The more layers, the more time you have in a big fire. The possibility of fire varies from car to car, but now that I've been in a big fire and taken seven seconds to get out, I was very glad I wore nomex underwear from head to toe under my suit. I've been using nomex underwear under my suit for the last eight or nine years. There's no price on my skin.

[dalyduo]

Can't speak for anyone else but I always wear knee length Nomex shorts, a Nomex short sleaved undershirt, Nomex socks, a Nomex balaclava, Nomex gloves and shoes. Have second set of Carbonex underwear that I bought when they first came out. Both brands work just fine. It is a requirement of the series to wear it but I'm sure there are some who don't. No good reason not to wear it except to save money but ask Gerardo or anyone who's been in a car fire... You'd hate to have some life altering burns because you were trying to save a few bucks on underwear. Fire is a rare occurance in SBRS races but we wear the safety equipment for a reason.

Between when I started writing and posting this entry Gerardo made his post.

[Andor]

Better Safe than Sorry! There's no price on safety

[kbalch]

Yep, I agree. I'm all about taking every opportunity to improve my odds in case of misfortune. I always wore my parachute when flying warbirds, acro, or testing, and I definitely have a safety-oriented attitude toward everything I do. Planes, bikes, cars, etc.

Definitely not something I'm looking to save money on, but just thinking about prioritizing before next getting into the car. My thought was to get gloves and shoes before the 2-Day next month, and everything else before the first race weekend. It doesn't seem as though the Skippy cars are at great risk for fire, but there is no price whatever on my skin.

I'll plan to get those Nomex underlayers before the 2-Day.

Ken

[WatertownNewbie]

Originally Posted by kbalch

I'll plan to get those Nomex underlayers before the 2-Day.

Not sure what is on the market now, but a few years ago (2005) when I got my stuff Sparco had a soft-touch nomex that really does feel softer than the regular version. I wear full length tops and bottoms, even in the summer, even at Road Atlanta.

[kbalch]

I've been going back & forth between the Sparco Soft Touch and the Carmyth. Is either softer than the other, or perhaps have a better rating?

Ken

[dalyduo]

Can't comment on the softness issues but recently came across a company called Molecule. They manufacture products to clean and treat fire resistant materials and just announced that Simpson will be their exclusive distributor.

http://www.moleculelabs.com/

Bob Varsha is their spokesman for a couple of informational videos explaining the products on the web site.

Any petroleum-based dirt (Grease or oil stains) on a fire suit acts as an accelerant in a fire. Turns out keeping a suit clean makes it safer. They also make a product that causes fire resistant material to repel fluids so gasoline or other flammable liquids can't soak into the fabric in the event of a fuel spill dramatically increasing the time of survival in a fire situation. The repellent works without making the fabric less breathable so it doesn't make it warmer for the wearer. Was struck by the thought and intelligence that went into developing these products. It appears they are being embraced by the racing community.

From a safety and aesthetic standpoint they make nothing but sense. Until recently Molecule offered a free sample kit of spot cleaner and wash (not the repellent product) but I see now that Simpson is distributing it they charge ten bucks for the sample. The products aren't cheap but when you look at the job they do and the cost of the suits it makes a lot of sense. Imagine there are quite a few vintage and not so vintage fire suits hidden away that aren't worn because they've become badly grease or oil stained. Neat to think that some of those suits could live again after using these products. They also have a "refresher" product that kills the bacteria that gives your suit that nasty ripe BO smell after you've worn it for several days during a hot summer race weekend at a distant track without access to cleaning.

[cooleyjb]

Definitely underwear underneath the suit.

A couple of suit gurus have pointed out the same thing to me that goes along with this thread.

The suit, the area it covers is often the least of your worries. The spots you really want to focus on are the breaks in coverage. Ankles, Wrist and Neck/Face.

The same recommendations came from both.

Wear underwear and tuck it into the boot along with the suit. Pull the socks (2 pairs preferably) as high as you can intertwined with those pant legs so it layers up. Sock, underwear, sock, suit.

For the wrist area, make sure your gloves have good gauntlets and overlap your suit. Using the underwear to layer here is good too.

For the neck, make sure you have a good overlap at the bottom of the balaclava. It's easy to miss this step as it's tough to do by yourself.

As Gerardo has pointed out in the past from personal experience. Any bit of extra materail on your face can be helpful. 2 eyeport balaclavas will be what I pick up from now on. the Single eyeport just has too much exposed area.

[Slowhands]

All excellent comments. I bought Carmyth long underwear when I was driving the Panoz GT series cars after a friends car went up in flames on the Sebring front straight after a front right blowout ripped out a fuel line and it took him what seemed an eternity to get out of the car because he couldn't get his window netting unlatched, had to crawl out of the "passenger" side. Luckily his fire extinguisher system operated perfectly and he escaped with only Halon inhalation. But the flames were impressive and very scary. Here are my thoughts in no particular order:

1. Be safe, wear fireproof underwear. While there are lots of conflicting and competitive claims about X fabric being better than Y fabric and companies will overwhelm you with all kinds of high-technical-falutin heat indexes, thermal protection indexes, etc etc etc that confirm their's is the best, the fundamental protection comes through layering. Basically the real world rule of thumb for a driver for all inherently fire-resistant fabrics (Nomex, Kevlar, Carbonex, etc) is that you get about 9 sec per layer before second-degree burning. So the more layers, the more time. I have never seen a Skippy car on fire, but I have seen several sedan fires and sport racer fires. I think the best Drag racing suits are 4 layer.

2. Being synthetic, fireproof breathes better than cotton, wicks sweat, air-dries faster between sessions. So I actually prefer it for comfort.

3. Carmyth is great but it is scratchy. The "soft" nomex is very comfortable.

4. I don't like the dust that comes off Carbonex when you wash and dry it, or even just rub it. They call this harmless "nuisance" dust (ie of no consequence), but as an obsessive-compulsive physician, to me inhaled carbon dust equals black lung, smoker's lung, etc. So I never got any more after my first pair of Carbonex socks. At the very least, I wouldn't want my full face balaclava to be Carbonex. However, now that I think of it, I think Bell switched to Carbonex for the lining of my helmet. I guess there is only so much you can worry about.

[GT-Subject]

Originally Posted by Slowhands

as an obsessive-compulsive physician

Surely, you can't be serious - I would have never guessed you were OC, Dr. Slowhands - it never occurred to me.......highly intelligent maybe, but not OC.

Seriously, all very good points. A good double or triple layer suit with underwear is the way to go. Good coverage at wrists, ankles, neck & dual eyeport balaclavas is a must!!

[Slowhands]

Originally Posted by GT-Subject

Surely, you can't be serious - I would have never guessed you were OC, Dr. Slowhands - it never occurred to me.......highly intelligent maybe, but not OC.

but in a good way

[cheekychica]

Originally Posted by dalyduo

Can't comment on the softness issues but recently came across a company called Molecule. They manufacture products to clean and treat fire resistant materials and just announced that Simpson will be their exclusive distributor.

http://www.moleculelabs.com/

I *think* this is what Adam has been selling at Driving impressions -- he had posters up at LRP all last season and seems to quite like it. If it's not this brand, it's something very similar.

[Gerardo]

While we're talking about it, I had a long discussion about my fire and other driver fires with a Sparco specialist who works with many Nascar teams while I was at the PRI show in December. She taught me to look for holes in my gloves. Apparently, the heat can flow through your glove if it has an escape point, such as a small wear hole. The heat travels fast, like an air blast, and can burn your hands along the path of the heat travel, underneath the glove. Amazing.

The only heat burn I had was at the top of my upper lip. It was covered by the balaclava, but it was near the edge of the large eyeport. The front of the balaclava covering my mouth was burned a good bit. The heat came right up the bottom of the helmet very quickly. I felt it instantly. Money well spent.

[Slowhands]

Originally Posted by Gerardo

While we're talking about it, I had a long discussion about my fire and other driver fires with a Sparco specialist who works with many Nascar teams while I was at the PRI show in December. She taught me to look for holes in my gloves. Apparently, the heat can flow through your glove if it has an escape point, such as a small wear hole. The heat travels fast, like an air blast, and can burn your hands along the path of the heat travel, underneath the glove. Amazing.

The only heat burn I had was at the top of my upper lip. It was covered by the balaclava, but it was near the edge of the large eyeport. The front of the balaclava covering my mouth was burned a good bit. The heat came right up the bottom of the helmet very quickly. I felt it instantly. Money well spent.

Gerardo, that is really interesting. What you are describing is nearly exactly the way long nerve fibers exploit the "travel" property of electricity to speed up conduction of nerve impulses when high speed conduction is needed. The fiber is covered with a fatty insulating substance called myelin, but this has gaps at regular intervals. The electrical potential then "leaps" from gap to gap, speeding up conduction speed significantly compared to an unmyelinated fiber. I had no idea heat traveled in this way, but since it too is a form of energy, I guess I shouldn't be surprised. In this case, the insulating substance is Nomex. If you had had a gap at the neck of your suit, you might have been burned all the way from that gap to your mouth, under your balaclava. I never realized that a gap puts more than the skin directly under the gap at risk, if there is a hole or another gap somewhere else, the entire area between them is at risk. Thanks for communicating that important insight.