Well UL is a pretty good model of a more independent certification system.Originally Posted by dalz
As far as the Isaac comment, isn't that baiting?
Well UL is a pretty good model of a more independent certification system.
As far as the Isaac comment, isn't that baiting?
This could get deep
Good idea Bob.........I suppose SFI could be approached with such question.......who's to do so?
I'm willing to try most anything...
Well, let's first see what the BoD decides.
Maybe SCCA Club Racing could work with SFI on behalf of SCCA members who own decertified Impact suits to get them inspected, certified, properly tagged and a letter of certification issued. I'd be willing to pay a fee to cover SFI's costs; it would be a lot cheaper than a replacement suit.
I hope the SCCA makes a decision quickly, because as of April 27, the suits and belts are illegal. My first race of the season starts April 29, so by then I need to either know my stuff is legal, or replace it. It would only add insult to injury to have to buy a new suit and belts in the next three weeks only to find out I didn't have to.
Matt King
FV19 Citation XTC-41
CenDiv-Milwaukee
KEEP THE KINK!
Agreed.
For those that may not understand how the UL system works:
UL maintains a list of standards for various products, which are developed and refined in conjunction with various industry groups such as NEMA and ANSI. In order to list a product under one of those products, a manufacturer submits a design and sample to one of the various NRTLs (Nationally Recognized Test Labs), which then tests the products against the desired standard. Once the lab issues the certification, the manufacturer is licensed to put the UL (or ETL, or CSA, etc.) logo on their product.
Here's the key: Although there is a single body - UL - that is responsible for the actual content of the standard, there are multiple independent labs who are all able to issue a product listing or registration. Thus, while there is a clear set of unified standards, there is still competition among the test labs - no monopoly. From a legal standpoint, there is no difference between a UL mark, a CSA mark, an ETL mark, or a listing from any of the other NRTLs, so no one lab can decide to charge an outrageous fee for their listing service.
The key question is whether or not there is enough business in the racing industry to support multiple independent certification labs. SFI may be a de facto natural monopoly due the market size.....
Marshall Mauney
Milwaukee Region
SFI and the manufacturers is an incsetous (sp) relationship at best.
SFI charging 5 bucks for s piddly label is total baloney.
If the equiptment is compliant, it is compliant.
Instead of worrying so much about the labels not being the 5 cent label sold to the manufacturers for 5 bucks, SFI should spend more effort spot checking performance of the equiptment.
The performance is what matters, not some silly label.
Right from the SFI WEb site (for informational purposes only. Highlighting theirs):
How Are the Specs Used in Racing?
When adopted as part of the rules of a race sanctioning body, enforcement is entirely up to that organization. The manufacturer then provides the racer with product that is in compliance with the specs enforced by the sanctioning body.
Man will race anything. It's in his blood. His Soul. He must.
Kurtis C. Shirley MacLane FV (sold), Lola T644 (sold), Murray FK1 FST (sold), Vector MG-95FF (sold), PRS 82F (sold), Lola T340... AKA PRS82F
So... SFI does not inspect any products. NONE of the products with SFI labels have ever been inspected by an independent party, even with a random sampling technique.
Now that is news to me. It sure seems like the word "certified" and SFI went hand in hand. Simple fact: you have no idea if ANY of your safety gear is right! Simpson had one of the best reputations in the market. What did that get you?
So all they do is provide specifications? What organization certifies these specifications, the manufactures?
What a wonderful free market capitalist system. Who needs consumer protection?
Brian
YES, exactly
But then, the SFI specifications are written by its "member manufacturers" i.e. the dog chasing its tail is a good way to view SFI.
CREW for Jeff 89 Reynard or Flag & Comm.
Not only do "they" provide the specs, they "create" the specs. The specs are created by paying members of the organization. Want a new spec on harnesses? Get the SFI members who make harnesses together and let them decide what the new spec should be. Anybody who isn't an SFI member manufacturer doesn't get to use the SFI label on their products....and then ONLY if said manufacturer pinky swears that the product they are putting the label on meets/exceeds the spec AND they "buy" the label/tag/patch from SFI.
Despite what some other classy folks might think they know about me, my distaste for the SFI came to be about 15 years ago when I was a safety equipment retailer. That's a long time before and has nothing to do with the ISAAC. The deal with the ISAAC just made more people aware of the SFI practices. However, more people disliked the device and the methods used marketing it, to see the issue with the SFI.
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.
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."
Thom
Back to fenders=SRF
Perhaps both are correct.
I've never felt safe(r) with or less safe without a SFI tag.
I just think there is WAY more too this.....
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
Drivers suits
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
Larry Oliver
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.
Matt King
FV19 Citation XTC-41
CenDiv-Milwaukee
KEEP THE KINK!
Quit true...Forgot about the roundy-rounders
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.”
Last edited by Daryl DeArman; 03.29.10 at 2:55 PM.
Thanks. DuPont--that WOULD make sense.
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?
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?Isn't the chinese flame retardant material nearly as good for half the price?
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...
They issued a statement on their website: http://www.impactraceproducts.com/
I'm with you on this. I only get FIA certified stuff.
Like watching a ping pong tournament.
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.
Breach?
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
Larry Oliver
deep doo
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.................
So some suits are not only OK but their patch is OK too
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.
Matt King
FV19 Citation XTC-41
CenDiv-Milwaukee
KEEP THE KINK!
Ping pong match this is ..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.................
So some suits are not only OK but their patch is OK too
But that means some suits..........that really are OK.......of course have the bogus patch!
Oh joy
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.
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