Press Release

Safety Designer Announces New Auto Racing Safety Designs

11/21/96

Racing Safety Designs to be Detailed at Canadian Motorsports Congress


DETROIT, Nov. 19 -- On Thursday of this week, a three-day
event -- the Annual Congress of the International Council of
Motorsport Sciences -- will review and propose advances in auto racing
safety, at the Inter Continental Hotel in Toronto, Ontario.

Thirty-three speakers, primarily from the world of IndyCar, Indy
Racing League and Formula One racing, will address safety-related
topics.  The Congress is hosted by Dr. Hugh Scully of the University
of Toronto.

One of the speakers, Inventor John Fitch of Lime Rock, Connecticut,
will detail three racing safety devices for racing circuits.

All of these are impact attenuating, or crash absorbing.  One is a
racing version of the highway barrier that Fitch invented many years
ago -- the yellow barrels commonly seen in front of bridge abutments.
Called the Inertial Barrier, it is an array of burstable plastic tubs
filled with sand that arrest the progress of out-of-control cars.
These barriers are set out in groupings of 50, 70 or 100 at the end of
high speed straightaways on road racing courses.

Another device is the Displaceable Guardrail.  Instead of being
mounted to posts sunk in the ground, this guardrail is mounted on
skids that allow the railing to move 10 feet or more, lessening the
force of the crash and protecting the driver.  The Displaceable
Guardrail also serves to mollify the impact vector and also to
redirect the car parallel with the guardrail.

A design for use where space is limited, such as on oval tracks, is
the Compression Guardrail.  It is a railing mounted to a concrete wall
with resilient tubing or foam-filled tire bundles between the rail and
the wall.  This gives between two and three feet of impact absorption
to the car and driver hitting it.

Fitch plans to solicit corporate sponsorships in offering the safety
upgrades free of charge to motor racing circuits.  In his plan, all
impact attenuating barriers would display sponsors' company or brand
names.