IMPACT Firesuits, boot, etc., "decertified" by SFI? (1 Viewer)

[Mikey]

I also believe that Impact will do what they can to fix this problem.

 

[Randy]

I trust that if something was to go wrong on the track; my Impact safety equiptment would not fail me

You can bet your life on that. Thankfully we didn't have a fire to prove you theory wrong. BTW, what kind of car do drive where you have to trust your firesuit every run?

Don't throw Kent under the bus. He was quoting Mike and put his response in bolt type under it.

 

[Randy]

I also believe that Impact will do what they can to fix this problem.

Yea, now... My guess is you dont have a clue.

 

[Ugly one]

Sorry Kent I flunked speed reading......I think......I really don't know I can't read the report card

 

[bus]

Thanks Randy and Martin, yes I’m on the side of right unlike Mike, that would be the Carlisle one you know the one without a clue!! If doing “everything they can” means attacking a customer and good Samaritan, that pretty much qualifies for clueless! As for Mike Hodge’s question, Alcohol: Proud owner of a 2008 SFI 20 suit from Phoenix Apparel and a 285” BAD. Even though the driver of our other car (that would be the TAD I Sponsor) had an Impact suit, I chose to purchase a Phoenix suit when I looked closely at how thin his was and the picture of John Force with his arm around my 10 yr old Grandson holding a Wally, John’s Impact suit looks like he’s wearing very thin pajamas, a really cool pair of pajamas I might add, and a priceless picture none the less. So as for Mr. Goodwin, never met him, never spoke to him (but looking forward to the honor of doing such!!) we share in the same concerns as one could say that maybe it was my money like it might have been his that bought his drivers failed suit!! Thanks Kevin, nothing wrong with making a mistake, just when you can’t admit it that it becomes wrong and causes a negative IMPACT!

Kent Goss
President & CEO
Operational Solutions Inc.
Proud Sponsor of the
Putz Racing TAD

 

[Jenn]

Kent,

if you want to properly quote you can either click the quote button on the thread you are trying to report, and the type below it. OR, if you forget that (like I do) you can click on the last icon on the second row of buttons, it looks like a little speech or text bubble. Then you can put an = after the first Quote that pops up and then type the name.

I hope that helps.

Furthermore, I will not be buying an SFI 15 suit from Impact! racing. If this is the new customer service, I'll pass.

The point of a fire RETARDANT suit is to slow the progress of flames, and while something is better than nothing, I'd rather have the best something I can have. I hadn't heard of Richard Putz, but some of the articles that I've seen makes his opinion worth something;

a. Because he's a racer
b. Because he's trying to keep other racers safe.

That means something to me, and I'd shake Richard's hand.

 

[bus]

Kent,

if you want to properly quote you can either click the quote button on the thread you are trying to report, and the type below it. OR, if you forget that (like I do) you can click on the last icon on the second row of buttons, it looks like a little speech or text bubble. Then you can put an = after the first Quote that pops up and then type the name.

I hope that helps.

Thanks Jenn, tried that earlier but didn't work. Seems good now. But I didn't know about the last icon button though.

 

[willy]

This really blows my mind. If there has been anyone in this industry that epitomizes professionalism..it was Bill Simpson. Simpson did it right for a long time.

What in the world happened? Was it just one batch of suits? Bill found out and didn't do the right thing?

Personally, I'd hate to see a 50 yr, excellent reputation ruined. But reading his response troubles me.

This could have all been cured by admitting there was an issue (early)..fixing it..and moving on.

 

[Jenn]

This really blows my mind. If there has been anyone in this industry that epitomizes professionalism..it was Bill Simpson. Simpson did it right for a long time.

What in the world happened? Was it just one batch of suits? Bill found out and didn't do the right thing?

Personally, I'd hate to see a 50 yr, excellent reputation ruined. But reading his response troubles me.

This could have all been cured by admitting there was an issue (early)..fixing it..and moving on.

Sometimes an apology smooths things out a lot too.

 

[Thrill]

Mike Carlisle

1. Have you ever strapped your ass in anything? More specifically a Funny Car, altered, or anything with the motor right in front of you w/o a steel firewall?

2. Have you ever had to hit the bottles? Hitting those bottles puts a whole new perspective on this situation. I was lucky the bottles worked and I wasn't in a bad fire, but it sure makes you check your stuff a little harder.

If you have, well you're entitled to your opinion. If not, well, I'm sure you can get a good idea what you need to do.

I'll take that one further on second thought. Sometimes it's a lot easier to put yourself in harms way if you want to race. What IF the person wearing questionable safety equipment was your wife, your daughter, your son, your dad or one of your best friends?

 

[Mikey]

Truth be known at the end of the day; unless their is someone in the burn unit right now everyone should count their blessings that SFI caught this mistake when they did. The only problem i have is that people are so quick to throw a fit and talk garbage about the situation instead of trying to get things ironed out. Simpson knows he messed up but everyone has written him off as a bad person. Just get the suit back to him and move on with life.


And dont get mad me for voicing my opinion just because i dont agree with you. Trust me my opinion is strickly that; we are all adults...also there should be a disclaimer to all of this; feelings dont belong on your sleeves

 

[Randy]

Truth be known at the end of the day; unless their is someone in the burn unit right now everyone should count their blessings that SFI caught this mistake when they did. The only problem i have is that people are so quick to throw a fit and talk garbage about the situation instead of trying to get things ironed out. Simpson knows he messed up but everyone has written him off as a bad person. Just get the suit back to him and move on with life.


And dont get mad me for voicing my opinion just because i dont agree with you. Trust me my opinion is strickly that; we are all adults...also there should be a disclaimer to all of this; feelings dont belong on your sleeves

They can count their blessings while thanking Richard Putz. If it wasn't for his never ending tenacity, who knows how many people would be risking their lives right now and not even know it.

Just curious. What is your definition of "quick to throw a fit?"

If you haven't taken the time to read up on what Richard said in his first post on Insidetopalcohol.com, paraphrasing Richard...The reason this whole mess started was because Richard had questions about his firesuit. In the last year or so his suit(s) have spent most of it's life on a UPS truck going back and forth from Richard to the manufacturer and back, where the final verdict was that it was fine.

Richard still had questions which were never answered to his satisfaction so he finally, after much frustration and a lot of time spent trying to do the right thing, sent it to SFI for testing where the verdict was worse than he expected. His story is a lot more complicated than ours so I won't bore you with the details of our SFI-20 firesuit that also sits on the shelf at SFI.

You have to ask yourself this. Would SFI issue a "decertification" for almost everything worn by all Top Fuel, Funny Car, Top Alcohol Dragster and Top Alcohol Funny Car drivers made in 2008 just because Richard's suit and ours stank up the testing lab? Who knows? There may be more to this than we'll ever know.

After being notified of all this, the wagons were quickly circled.

When you say "The only problem i have is that people are so quick to throw a fit and talk garbage about the situation instead of trying to get things ironed out. Simpson knows he messed up but everyone has written him off as a bad person. Just get the suit back to him and move on with life" you have no idea what Richard or anyone else has gone through and what has brought this whole situation to the point where it is right now. How many years do you think Richard should have endured?

You see the emotion John Force has concerning safety. Do you think he's taking a second look at his firesuit tonight? Look at all the things he's done to Ashley's funny car, ie, removable two piece side windows on her Mustang in case it's upsidedown, etc. Well, I'll tell you. The kid driving my funny car this year is new to TA/FC racing. He's also as close to being my own nephew as you can get without actually being related. I was at the hospital when he was born. I take full responsibilty for his safety EVERY TIME WE STRAP HIM IN THE CAR. I was so PISSED when I found out the suit he was wearing in my funny car didn't even come close when tested...you have no idea how pissed I was. If he would have been hurt or killed in my car over this I can't tell you what I might have done.

That's the emotion you are hearing here on this board. People putting loved ones, friends, relatives, mothers, daughters, sisters, and brothers in their race cars and thinking that they bought the absolute best products known on earth to try to protect their lives if the worst happens. And if a person does get hurt or killed (and it will happen) you can at least say you did the best you could and life just happens.

But when you realize while trying to protect yourself the only one worried about you was you it's "slightly" disturbing, to say the least. And I don't think it's really about bad products, it's the way it was handled. No one is perfect and no one expects that. But righting a wrong in an honorable manner isn't that hard unless you chose to make it that way.

Life is full of choices, isn't it?

RG

 

[mokanmike]

sorry kent my bad, still don't know what mike c drive's
i guess he feels safe with his impact safety equipment...

 

[GregM784]

Mr. Goodwin, very well put. Some people just don't get it.

And yes, I drive. I drive a blown alcohol front motor car. No i don't have an Impact suit. I wouldn't wear one if you gave it to me. That is a shame. I'm 36 years old, and my entire racing career, Bill Simpson has been an ICON. Today? Nothing but a scandral.

EVERYONE/Every company has faulty items. Why don't some people get that it ISN"T the bad product. It is how he DIDN'T handle it!!!

You do not judge a person by how they act 99% of the time. You judge a person by how they act in that last 1% of the time, the hard time, the time when it is down to the wire, and the correct decision HAS to be made. Bill Simpson blundered. The damage is done. How will he ever undo it.

 

[Jenn]

Truth be known at the end of the day; unless their is someone in the burn unit right now everyone should count their blessings that SFI caught this mistake when they did. The only problem i have is that people are so quick to throw a fit and talk garbage about the situation instead of trying to get things ironed out. Simpson knows he messed up but everyone has written him off as a bad person. Just get the suit back to him and move on with life.


And dont get mad me for voicing my opinion just because i dont agree with you. Trust me my opinion is strickly that; we are all adults...also there should be a disclaimer to all of this; feelings dont belong on your sleeves

If the fastest thing you've driven is a street car with an automotive grade seatbelt and a tank top. Get out of the way.

Seriously man, Simpson is in the business of keeping people safe, and keeping people safe means being diligent in your actions, in your manufacturing process, and hell, even in the manner of talking to your customer so that they feel safe, not like a wuss who for some reason doesn't want to be burned.

Yeah, big warning when you open a Impact! box, a Simpson box, DJ box, RSJ box. "This garment is not guaranteed to protect to against burns". I can accept that, ONLY, ONLY when that product is made up to specification.

I think Richard Putz handled this situation in a way that brought to the attention of everybody that can be in danger. DANGER. This is a DANGEROUS sport. We wear this equipment to reduce the DANGER, not to increase the DANGER.

Car's on fire, you wanna get the yell out of that car, but if you know you have adequate safety clothing it reduces the panic.

If what Putz did makes any spectator or friend of a racer go up to their buddies and say "Hey man, is your suit okay?" and that racer examines their suit, from SFI 3.2/1 to SFI 3.2/5, and finds even a small tear and decides to go get it fiex...he's done a good thing.

 

[None]

And dont get mad me for voicing my opinion just because i dont agree with you. Trust me my opinion is strickly that; we are all adults...also there should be a disclaimer to all of this; feelings dont belong on your sleeves

If the fastest thing you've driven is a street car with an automotive grade seatbelt and a tank top. Get out of the way.

That's a pretty childish smarky remark.

 

[Jenn]

That's a pretty childish smarky remark.

I stand by it. I don't think you can understand the dangers and the safety equipment put in place unless you've pulled that helmet on.

If you can't come without some sort of credibility and say "Oh, well as long as nobody is in the burn unit, it's A-OK!"

So is saying that

unless their is someone in the burn unit right now everyone should count their blessings that SFI caught this mistake when they did.

Front what I understand, SFI wouldn't have even been made aware of the problem if it wasn't for Putz.

Things happen, axle studs sheer, blowers pop, fuel lines come loose and ignite, but to pass off a substandard piece of equipment to a racer trusting you to build him a proper piece protective clothing is negligent.

 

[Mikey]

Everyone makes it sound like Bill Simpson made shady suits on purpose. Is it not possible that human error is at fault; everyone makes mistakes; dont kill the guy for it. Give the guy a break; because if you are typing posts on this site; obviously he is making a pretty good product; it has kept you safe thus far.

 

[Nick Name]

Truth be known at the end of the day; unless their is someone in the burn unit right now everyone should count their blessings that SFI caught this mistake when they did.

Man there are some strange people on this site.

 

[haagar]

Everyone makes it sound like Bill Simpson made shady suits on purpose. Is it not possible that human error is at fault; everyone makes mistakes; dont kill the guy for it. Give the guy a break; because if you are typing posts on this site; obviously he is making a pretty good product; it has kept you safe thus far.

Hopefully the people who are posting have been lucky enough not to have to see whether or not all their safety equipment works.

I haven't seen anyone say that he purposely made shady suits. I have seen people say he didn't handle it well when it was discovered there may be a problem. IMHO it should have been on the front page everywhere it needs to be for all the drivers who have these suits to find out about. If there doesn't turn out to be a problem then fine, but at least give the people the information they need to make a decision on whether or not they want to entrust their lives to the product.