Interesting Tidbit: There is this ironic footnote to the safety debate: Being shown in Winston Cup trailers yesterday morning was a video clip of a 20-year-old film short that was pretty shocking – crewman George White, at the wheel of a late model stock car, Oct. 30, 1980 on a Florida short track, deliberately running into a concrete barrier at 59 mph in a dramatic test of a head-and-neck restraint White himself had devised. White survived, with a broken leg but no other serious injuries. The restraint device was quite similar to the current Autoliv-Hutchens device, with straps attached to the helmet and to a special body harness that in part resembles the current six-point seat belt. White says that he attempted to market his device to the racing world, but with no success. White wrote to General Motors on April 21, 1981, about the safety device but got the cold shoulder. He also wrote to USAC and NASCAR that same year and got the cold shoulder from both.(See more at the Winston Salem Journal)(10-22-2001)
