Urgent Safety Bulletin Sublimated Race Suits Do Not Meet SFI Specifications
N A S R National Office posted Tuesday October 6, 2009. – courtesy of www.nasr.com.au
NASR Bulletin # 05/2009
Please Note: SUBLIMATED RACE SUITS DO NOT MEET SFI SPECIFICATIONS
It’s been brought to the attention of NASR that certain driver protective suits being manufactured and distributed into the marketplace present a unique and serious threat to the safety of drivers. These suits, known as sublimated suits, incorporate an outer layer of material that is neither flame nor heat resistant and will melt at relatively low temperatures.
“These suits can be easily identified,” said a representative of SFI, “ by the nature of their graphics, which are achieved by a process called dye sublimation. Rather than using more traditional graphic methods such as patches attached to, or embroidery sewn into the suit, this process provides for complex and vivid graphics, which are actually imbedded directly into the outer material layer.”
At first, these suits were distributed only for use in motorsport disciplines in which the sanctioning bodies have no minimum standards for driver protective clothing. They are not certified or identified by the manufacturer as meeting SFI Spec 3.2A, or any other accepted industry wide standard.
There have already been sublimated suits found on the Australian Speedway scene produced by Awesome Racewear without SFI approval badges. These suits do not, and cannot meet any accepted industry wide standard for driver protection and do not meet the minimum safety standards set by NASR.
If anyone presents such a suit to scrutineering, the technical inspectors or scrutineers may refuse to allow the driver to compete in that race meeting.
All race suits must meet the minimum SFI or FIA safety specifications for their particular racing division and the suit must have the appropriate labels and markings identifying these approvals. NASR encourages the supplier to
If you have any further questions, please contact the NASR Head Office on (08) 8139 0777