Oh No Not Again….

[sutton]

Don Garlits for years used the latch type belts. He was worried about the WWII type twist and hit type locking up from the webbing going under the nob until he saw the Dennis Taylor model buckle, then he switched to DT's belts. At OCIR Larry Bowers was getting into the Larry Minor top fuel car and I said to Larry WHY are you using that latch type belts. he said the same thing he was worried about the other type, on that run he rolled the car in the lights and came half way out of the car, when his arm restrains opened the latch. Larry broke both arms.
Larry Sutton---
BTW-- that was Larry's first run in that car.

 

[LAZYC]

I'm pretty sure it happened to Kenji Okasaki in Jim Dunn's car too

I had the same thing happen during a qualifying run on a Friday night at OCIR for the Manufactures Meet early to mid-seventies (1972-73).

We had to remove the nut on the pitman arm to swing the tubing crossmember that holds the steering box on out of the way to service the clutch between runs.
My crew guy Bob forgot to tighter the nut and about half track the pitman arm fell off and the car slid over to the right steel guardrail and broke off the driver's side canard wing and scuffed off my name on the side of the body, I got the car stopped and we reinstalled the pitman arm and made another run after taking the left side canard wing off also, I was more pissed than scared. We qualified so the night turned out alright!