Rollcage Safety - Race Safely

Here's a wider view of the same area. Leavitt says this repair, when done correctly, should be just as strong and reliable as the original chassis. But if you're looking to purchase a car and the owner tells you it has never been reclipped, you should be able to notice this right away.

One problem with repairing a race car is it can be quite difficult to access behind body panels, firewalls, or other components to do all the welding that must be done. Sometimes it requires cutting away a lot of stuff that's otherwise OK and creates a lot of extra work. Make sure you look behind bars to make sure welds cover the entire circumference of the tubing and that the person who made the repair didn't take any shortcuts.

Leavitt pointed out this car that had just arrived at his shop for repairs. The team had already cut away many of the damaged tubes, including this area. You can see flat spots in the tubing created by a grinder. Leavitt says that the flat spots create thin areas in the tubing and weakens it. When cutting away bars and grinding off the weld, you have to be very careful to follow the contour of the tubing that's to remain and not grind into it too much. It takes a steady hand and a lot of experience to be good at this.

It can be a lot more difficult to examine a painted chassis. One clue, however, is chipped or flaking paint around a weld. This can be a sign of a flexing and cracking weld.

These two tubes connect the driver's door bars to the front clip of the car on the left side. They aren't really structural-their main purpose is to protect the driver's feet in case he or she takes a hard hit between the front of the door and the fender.

This vertical bar helps to keep the roof from caving in if the driver ever finds himself on his lid. It's a critical bar and usually has more wall thickness than the horizontal bars attached to it. The vertical bar should always be one solid piece with the horizontal bars spliced on either side of it, not the other way around.

This piece of plate metal keeps part of another car or anything else from slicing between the door bars and stabbing the driver in the torso or legs. Notice the holes in either side? It may not be obvious at first, but those holes are critical any time you weld a plate in place that covers the entire area in order to provide access for rescue workers to use the Jaws of Life to cut away the door bars and get at the driver if they need to.

We had to look a while, but Leavitt finally found an example of a poor weld on a car that came in for some repairs. This is a seat mounting tab that's difficult to reach; a race team had added it after the car was basically finished. You can see that the weld bead isn't consistent, there's lots of splatter, and there are welds on top of other welds. In a bad wreck this weld will probably hold, but it certainly doesn't inspire the same confidence as many of the other welds we've shown you previously.

At the back of the car, make sure the 'cage is securely mounted and protected from a big hit to the rear.

Likewise, take a look underneath the car to make sure the fuel cell isn't the lowest point. If both rear tires are flattened or something else happens, there should be a part of the chassis that drags the ground first so that the fuel cell is still safely up in the air.

While we were in Leavitt's shop, he pointed out one particular chassis under construction that was using entirely TIG welds. Leavitt said the team wanted to see if the more precise welding method saved any weight. So far, he says, it hasn't, but his crew has invested an additional 30 man hours making all the welds.