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So, put another way, you fill out the form, pay for the tags, and SFI rubber stamps your widget as compliant?!??!?! Yeah, I feel much safer now!!!!
Its kinda sad that this will detract from Bill Simpsons reputation, but he may just have exposed one of the biggest scams in the racing community.
Quote:
Originally Posted by 10rmotor
Or did he perpuate one of the biggest scams on the racing community? Seems that if they are willing to cheat on Hans post, suit materials, & now SFI labels maybe they are not quite innocent in all of this, I am wondering where they cheated on other materials of the Impact products I own, doesnt exactly give me the warm fuzzy that they can be trusted in the future.
"According to documents as part of the lawsuit, which deals only with clips and not uniforms, HANS alleges that Impact Racing bought counterfeit clips from China-based Richard Hung Enterprises for $8.90 a set – compared to $41.25 for the real clips – and were sold at a price of $52 a set ($13 below the HANS retail price).
In a deposition filed with the case, Simpson said while he did not dispute the clips were counterfeit, he never authorized anyone to engrave SFI or HANS markings on the clips."
Quote:
Originally Posted by 10rmotor
Perhaps both are correct.Quote:
Originally Posted by thomschoon
I've never felt safe(r) with or less safe without a SFI tag.
I just think there is WAY more too this.....:confused:
Thank you T644
The note you post seems to open the window thru which the SCCA may allow Impact suits.
I'm lucking out on this one......my son hasn't raced lately and I can use his suit!
I use Stand 21....the best...
As a former multi decade UL employee, a couple of points:
1) It is unlikely that UL, ETL, CSA would accept the potential liability of certifying any racing only or primarily racing product. UL and CSA are not for profit but they are also not for loss. ETL is for profit.
2) UL especially is extremely active to deal with counterfit UL marks. They even have cooperation from US Customs. Look at the "holographic" UL labels on many portable lamps, christmas decorations, etc. All part of a MAJOR effort to deal with counterfit UL labels from China.
3) All get their funding from manufacturers. Both for the initial project testing, etc. and for periodic factory inspections (typically 4 times per year). You don't pay, you lose the right to use their certification mark. You fail the periodic inspections, you lose the right to use the mark. However, in most cases the inspections don't cover anything but a small portion of production and they are not statistically based. Many times a particular product which is built in small short run batches will go for years without actually being inspected.
4) UL, CSA, ETL, and all the overseas safety labs use either their own standards (UL and CSA) or other international, etc. standards. All require ONE standard for a particular situation. I.e. no competing standards for the same product/use in the great majority of situations.
Dick
It wasn't all that long ago that a driving suit simply had to be made of Nomex or other flameproof material. I used my stash of old USAF flight suits to fulfill the requirement. Then, after many years of simply requiring Nomex, SCCA started requiring a certified suit. We've been through this with belts and harnesses, too. I'd certainly like to see the SCCA do the obvious choice and grandfather the suits for a couple of years.
...I'm thinking my next business venture ought to be involved with the certification of something...Charge high initial certification fees and then a smaller fee for a label or sticker per unit. Change the standards every few years...Fantastic business model. Maybe certify "organic" foods or free range chickens.
Larry Oliver
International Racing Products
As I wrote earlier in another post, SFI is simply another protection racket. It's model is most certainly NOT from capitalism. But given that the insurance industry is a government fascist system, and SCCA has to pay insurance, then the insurance industry has a strong desire to grow its racket - hence the SCCA requirement for SFI certified equipment.
Pure capitalism would be completely buyer beware. Like the saying - how much should I pay for a helmet? How much is your head worth?
People very often complain about a particular system that they think displays the problems with capitalism, when in fact the system they complain about is NOT capitalistic at all (mostly fascist or communist). There is usually government interference in the pure market, with the attendant secondary and tertiary unintended effects. The secondary effects of SCCA and SFI are that people purchase safety items with a higher level of trust in what other people have done, rather than maintaining personal responsibility.
SFI is already loosing market share...
The last 2 items I bought have FIA certifications. (Scrothe belts & MOMO suit)
What is left?
Shoes & gloves only have to be made of fireproof material.
Side nets only have to have a tag and be serviceable.
Helmets are Snell
We already have the power to put SFI on notice financially.
Thanks to the SCCA allowing FIA certifications a few years ago.
From the SCCA/road racing persepctive, this is probably true, especially since FIA certs are an option. But the drag and circle track markets dwarf us, and in those venues, SFI is still king. In fact, many of the smaller local Saturday-night circle tracks don't require any certification labels, which is why there is so much lower-end safety gear on the market without them. For example, a few years ago I was ordering some stuff from Speedway Motors and I wanted to add a new window net to my order, but of the five or six models they stocked, none even carried an SFI tag. Of course they are the same damn nets as the same companies sell with SFI tags, they simply understandably don't want to sew a $5 tag onto a $10 window net. :rolleyes:Quote:
Originally Posted by WhatsThatnoise
Quit true...Forgot about the roundy-roundersQuote:
Originally Posted by Matt King
Now that I'm in an open car though...
I can't think of one thing that I have to have w/ an SFI tag.
(Gloves, shoes, arm restraints etc., still come w/ SFI tags even though I don't need them)
HANS is also FIA
Who owns that mannequin I saw on the Discovery Ch. shows about racing safety that they dress up in racewear and then light up with blowtorches to test how much heat transfers through it? FIA?
You mean the DuPont Thermo-Man? DuPont...the maker of NOMEX among other things ;)
Apparently there are THREE such Thermo-Man mannequins out there...
“There are three laboratories that have these types of mannequins,” Templeton said. “One is DuPont’s facility in Richmond, VA. Another one’s at North Carolina State University and the third one is at the University of Alberta. The mannequin at DuPont and the mannequin at NC State can be used for certification of thermal protective garments to meet NFPA standards.”
Thanks. DuPont--that WOULD make sense.:o
NFPA...I suppose they wouldn't be interested in taking on this certification mess for us....
I don't know about the inner workings of SFI but considering how easily IMPACT decided that counterfeiting fitted their business model I would be very nervous about any of their products.
Counterfeit HANS anchors. Check
Counterfeit SFI tags. Check
Counterfeit NOMEX. Well who really knows.
Isn't the chinese flame retardant material nearly as good for half the price? :rolleyes:
I would not take Bill Simpson's word for it considering their current counterfeiting activities.
Could be nearly as good or better at 1/4 the price....as long as they don't call it Nomex it isn't counterfeit. How come the latest Stand21 suits don't contain any Nomex? Or PBI/Kevlar? Or CarbonX?Quote:
Originally Posted by Tim FF19
Where is "Pairformance" made? What about "active Pairspiration"? Wouldn't that be something if it were made in China?
Being in the market for a new suit lately I've noticed there's a LOT less info regarding the make-up of each layer. If it's a brand name like nomex, carbon-x, etc, then it's usually listed. But a lot of stuff now is proprietary and not specified, which also gives the manufacturer leeway to change the makeup of the suit without changing model numbers.
Seems like the method du jour is to meet a spec, materials and # of layers don't matter any more. That might also make it tough for the SCCA to go back to specifying make-up.
Exactly Rick.
Even when comparing two suits both constructed of 3 layers of Nomex IIIA for example aren't neccessarily the same....especially when they don't specify if 2 of the layers are 4.5oz./yd while the third is 6oz. or whatever. Nevermind the major suit manufacturers who advertise a suit as being 3 layers when in fact it is only 3 certain areas and two elsewhere.
As long as we are talking about China and Nomex...this company purchases Nomex thread from DuPont and weaves their own material....would love to know how many suit manufacturers in Europe and the USA they are supplying.
http://www.tradekey.com/product_view/id/181388.htm
Rick we should talk on the telly :D...Quote:
Originally Posted by Rick Kirchner
They issued a statement on their website: http://www.impactraceproducts.com/
I'm with you on this. I only get FIA certified stuff.Quote:
Originally Posted by WhatsThatnoise
Like watching a ping pong tournament.
:mad:
Been thinking about this for the last few days:
1) While I'm not letting them off the hook for counterfeiting SFI labels & HANS anchors, exactly what SAFTEY item is at issue with Impact. Were the anchors less strong? Does the patch make the suit less fireproof?
2) The fact of the matter is SFI has every right to kick Impact out of their "club", and sue them. It's called breach of contract. Somebody at Impact decided it was a good idea to put their whole company on the line in exchange for saving relatively tiny amounts of money on the bottom line. Dumb, dumb, dumb. Impact is effectively done as a safety equipment manufacturer. Even if they prove in court that the forged patch thing is either untrue or only on a single production run, their reputation is ruined. A shame, because overall they made some pretty good stuff.
3) That being said, "de-certifying" every previous suit is a move that only hurts the racers SFI claims to be trying to protect. I understand that they need to cover their asses with regards to liability, but there has yet to be an allegation that the suits themselves are defective. All SFI has stated is that an indeterminate number of labels were forged, and that the system relies on trust to succeed. That's a nice political statement, but the fact of the matter is that the whole point of SFI is SAFETY. The real question is, are the suits unsafe? Being a manufacturer-centered organization, all this action is inevitably going to lead to accusations that the blanket decertification is just proof of conflict of interest.
4) The one thing SFI really needs to learn from this is to come up with some other way of assuring certification. If they're going to insist on everyone buying a patch, then that patch ought to be somehting that can't be forged by a Chinese teenager for $0.10 a patch. Snell did this with the SA labels, using a "counterfeit-proof" design that's more expensive to forge than a simple decal, and each label includes a unique serial #. Note to SFI: If you're charging $5 for a certification patch, it should be made in such a way that it costs $10 to dupicate. The honor system doesn't usually work these days, especially in an ultra-competetive market where every penny counts.
Sam, you're being kind. While they may have breached their contract with SFI, they committed a fraud on their customers. I share your doubts about the necessity to disallow their suits, and as mentioned earlier, I had hoped that the SCCA would be a little less officious...but it doesn't sound like that's the case. But if Impact duplicated the patch and intentionally mislead their customers, it's fraud.
Larry Oliver
International Racing Products
Now this Impact thing gets even more cornfuzing........
I read a moment ago at the SFI Foundation site that...............get this............that Impact
did
not
use
all
counterfeit patches.................:confused:
So some suits are not only OK but their patch is OK too :thumbsup:
But that means some suits..........that really are OK.......of course have the bogus patch!
Oh joy
It seemed pretty obvious from the start that Impact must have been purchasing some genuine labels from SFI all along or they would have outed themselves in pretty short order. The question is what percent are counterfeit, 10 percent, 90 percent, or somewhere in between? Notwithstanding the legitimate arguments of fraud, breach of contract and trust, etc., a blanket decertification will throw many babies out with the bathwater and the primary victims of that action will be the racers who bought them.
Ping pong match this is ..Quote:
Originally Posted by EYERACE
Right now it appears that this has been sortof settled. At least for gear mfr'd in 2009 and 2010
April, 2010
JOINT PRESS RELEASE
April 1, 2010 - Impact Racing, LLC and SFI Foundation, Inc., in the litigation pending in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Indiana, have agreed that:
1. Impact Racing, LLC has provided sworn testimony that, upon review and investigation, no counterfeit SFI Conformance Labels have been used on Impact Racing products during the production years of 2009 and 2010.
2. Impact Racing, LLC has provided sworn testimony that, upon review and investigation, all Impact Racing products manufactured and sold during the production years 2009 and 2010 meet SFI specifications.
3. Based upon this sworn testimony, the decertification against Impact Racing products for the production years 2009 and 2010 is lifted. The decertification of the production years prior to 2009 and 2010 remains in effect. The parties will continue to work cooperatively in an effort to resolve the issues relating to decertification in these years.
4. Impact Racing stands behind the safety of all products it has manufactured and to which SFI Conformance Labels have been affixed. SFI will continue to monitor compliance with product specifications.
5. Impact Racing, LLC and SFI Foundation, Inc. will cooperate in determining whether any Impact Racing product bears a counterfeit SFI Conformance Label and if any safety issue exists in regard to products manufactured prior to 2009 and 2010.
6. If any Impact Racing product does not bear the date of manufacture the purchaser or user is instructed to immediately contact Impact Racing who will provide verification of the date of manufacture. Impact Racing, LLC will immediately notify SFI Foundation, Inc. of this occurrence. Impact Racing, LLC and SFI Foundation, Inc. will work with the sanctioning bodies to determine the best method for product users to present verification of the date of manufacture.
For a downloadable .pdf of this press release, please click on the following link: Joint Press Release 04-01-10.
The "smiley" that is "winking" after Bill Simpson's signature actually nauseates me. It is like is just giving a big FU to all of us like this is some joke. I am quite disgusted.:mad:
Well, the good news is my 2009 belts are legal. Not sure about my suit, but I am in the process of replacing it anyway. Most suits aren't dated, so I don't know how a decertification will be enforced either. And when the SNELL 2010 helmets come out, I will replace my Impact helmet with another brand, and never buy anything else from Bill Simpson.
How do you know that the shoes and gloves are made with FR materials unless they are certified?
If Bill can't stop this decertification don't you think he'll just declare bankruptcy? He's done it before.Quote:
Originally Posted by lawyerbob
Same way you know the gloves, shoes, socks, etc. that don't need a certification.Quote:
Originally Posted by Racer Jer
Back in the days of borax soaked suits a lighter usually worked.......
RACING MEMO
DATE March 31, 2010
NUMBER: RM 10-04
FROM:Club Racing Board
TOAll Participants
SUBJECT: SFI Decertification of Impact Products
SCCA is aware of the action taken by SFI against Impact Racing. We are in the process of determining what action (if any) will be needed for our drivers. We will communicate the outcome to our drivers, tech personnel and stewards via member email and website posting when the answers have been determined. Until further notice, it is business as usual and as long as your safety products have SFI certification (patch/sticker) that meets our current GCR requirements, you would be considered compliant.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Racer Jer
If a judgment is based on fraud, which something like this would be, then it's not dischargeable. But since they won iin court today, at least from what I hear, it may all be a moot point - need to keep watching to see what happens next
Does the message from SCCA, "Until further notice, it is business as usual and as long as your safety products have SFI certification (patch/sticker) that meets our current GCR requirements, you would be considered compliant," mean that you are all right so long as you have an SFI patch, even if it is counterfeit? This seems to be a pretty vague statement. Or do they just not want to say it?
- Frank C
It seems a partial compromise has been agreed upon. http://auto-racing.speedtv.com/artic...come-to-terms/
The SCCA missive seemed pretty clear to me. If it has a patch indicating the correct standard, it's acceptable for now...I'd balk if someone showed up with a duct tape and magic marker and claimed that it was a patch, but anything resembling the correct label should be acceptable.
Larry Oliver
Erstwhile national chief steward
I wondered when something like this was going to happen.SFI is about profit just like Impact.Do I condone counterfeiting certification?Absolutely not but SFI ,in my opinion usually holds the dollar more important than the process.If you don't agree just look at the head and neck restraint issues and their process for certification of all the companies who build products that compete with the HANS device.
A source [secondhand - but it gets up to the BOD] - which I can't say is reliable - simply because I've never obtained any news from this channel prior - says the SCCA is apparently not going to do much of anything to a driver that presents an Impact suit at Tech with a label on it that looks like most anything other than homemade.
Time will tell indeed but maybe this whole thing is going to cause no member in the SCCA to get their fireproof panties in a wad.
I sure hope it's true
This entire incident is so sad on many many levels.
Apparently it was not just about a dispute over tags after all. I think this pretty much puts the nail in Impact's coffin.
http://www.sfifoundation.com/PressRelease04-21-10.pdf
Quote:
April 21, 2010 - SFI issues the following press release. Please review this carefully:
1. Impact Racing has withdrawn its appeal of the decertifications of its products bearing SFI 3.2A, 3.3, 16.1, and 16.5 specifications manufactured in the years 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008. The decertifications of these products are now permanent.
2. The decertifications are based upon a number of the affected products being non-
compliant with SFI specifications concerning labeling and construction. In addition to the
presence of non-compliant SFI tags and the absence of DOMs on products, 3.2A/5 suits made prior to 2009 have been constructed with non-compliant materials that, in SFI’s judgment, pose a safety risk to users of these suits.
3. Impact Racing is permitted to maintain the certification for products bearing SFI
3.2A, 3.3, 16.1, and 16.5 specifications manufactured in 2009 and 2010. SFI’s investigation of
the labeling and construction of these products is ongoing. Impact’s participation in the SFI
specification programs ends June 22, 2010.
4. Any Impact product with SFI specifications 3.2A, 3.3, 16.1, and 16.5 without a
date of manufacture (DOM) is deemed to be a decertified product unless the manufacturer has
provided the product user with proof that it was manufactured in 2009 or 2010. This proof must be presented to track officials upon request. Impact believes that its products made in 2009 and 2010 have the DOMs affixed to products to the extent mandated by SFI specifications.
So looking over a couple of SFI only suits I have here. None of them have the date of manufacture on them either. The only impact suit I've looked at was the same.
For what it's worth, this is off the front page of the Impact website...
SFI will be issuing a press release sometime today (Wednesday, April 21st). Impact was just notified of this at 4:30 today. Impact Racing will have an official rebuttal to SFI's statement by 5pm tomorrow, Thursday, April 22nd.
So if I have an Impact suit manufactured in 2005 with a 3.2A/5 rating, it is now rendered useless? Granted, I have taken proper measures by ordering a new Sparco, but I want to know for sure before I send the Impact back with a letter to Mr. Simpson.
I've also got an Impact suit from 2005. I'm thinking it will make a classy set of coveralls for the shop. :rolleyes:
FYI: The suit MAY have a tag sewn on an inside seam with a date of mfg. This practice probably varies with manufacturer but I've seen more than one brand done this way.
Also might want to wait until the dust settles on this....there are always more than one version of the story. Never know what type of settlement may become of this...just might have to have the suit/belts to collect.
Impact's latest press release:
[FONT=Verdana]Impact strongly disagrees with SFI’s decertification of its products manufactured in the years 2005-2008. Impact is working diligently to resolve this issue with SFI. Impact decided to stop the internal SFI appeal process because it became obvious that Impact could not get a fair hearing.[/FONT][FONT=Verdana]IMPACT PRESS RELEASE - APRIL 22nd 2010[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman] [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana]Impact’s track record of providing safety to racers is unmatched. There have been no burns or other injuries reported to Impact by any racer wearing Impact Race Products since its inception. Impact has seen drivers wearing its gear walk away unharmed from very serious explosions and wrecks. We stand behind the safety of our products 100% and have always placed the safety of racers at the forefront of our mission and company. Bill Simpson has worked at the goal of saving racers’ lives for over 52 years and his name is synonymous with motorsports safety.[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman] [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana]Impact’s vocal position has been that SFI’s certification programs are seriously flawed and antiquated and do not address the issue of safety. Accordingly, SFI is applying standards to us that it has not applied to any other product manufacturer.[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman] [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana]Impact regrets that SFI has chosen the path of decertification and lawsuits against Impact as a way to handle any concerns it has. Bill Simpson and Impact Racing have always worked closely with SFI and all sanctioning bodies to help improve driver safety in motorsports and come up with many innovations in safety. Impact would like to have resolved this issue in a different way. Unfortunately, SFI’s actions have caused racers unnecessarily to question their safety.[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman] [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana]Impact will do everything in its power to resolve this dispute and help our loyal customers through it. We are committed to clearing Impact’s name and moving onward with our job of providing the best safety equipment money can buy to racers across the country and world.[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman] [/FONT]