I'm doing the same thing Curt is doing. I've got a full containment halo seat to be installed and under the advice of Jim Foxx, was told to try to get the seat in a position that allowed comfortable driveability/shifting, and keep the window area as open as possible. He said that pedal extensions like the ones Curt fabbed up would likely be necessary.

Racing Seat Preference

My intent is not to rebalance the weight in the car, but to provide as much safety as possible. If pedal extensions are already being used in the interest of window clearance, isn't that already safety related?

I'm 5'11 and fairly athletic, so I doubt I'll have the seat in the rear passenger area, but it may come back enough to need some extra reach for the pedals.

If we are worried about weight shifting then we need to be sure to not allow any cool suit boxes or fire system bottles to be mounted anywhere but the same place as ballast.

FWIW adding fuel to the car is a great way to shift weight.

Seems that the max distance you can move the seat back is limited anyways. And since we cant do anything with the shifter this will help with this issue. Unless of course you put extensions on your hands and feet

Sure would hate to see new rules for this minor issue.

Rules stability will help grow this class. Lets not forget that please.

I have a halo ButlerBuilt seat and installed it THREE times.

The first time my head was at the roof and I broke the rear view mirror with my helmet. There was no way I could get out of the car with my Hans and helmet on.

The second time I moved the seat back and down. It was better but still not enough to be able to exit within any time frame that was reasonable.

The third time, I mounted it as low as I could without it being on the floor pan and as far back as I could in relationship to the roll cage hoop and that finally worked to give me the space above my head and to open up enough window space to allow me to get out of the car in an emergency. I had to add pedal extensions to all of the pedals, however, to be able to reach them without straining. Joe drove my car and did not have any objection to it.

I am able to reach the shifter just fine with my seat position but it simply will not work if it is more to the front. In addition, having it low increases the head room above, what NASCAR was trying to do with their new car design!

Gentlemen, the difference in position of the seat is, perhaps, 1/2 to 3/4 to 1 inch. That moves my 200 lbs back that much in a 2,600 pound car!!!!!!! SO WHAT!!!!! Someone else can do the math on how much that changes the CG and I don't really care. My safety is MUCH more important to me.

The halo seat is MUCH safer than ANY other seat in a crash. There is NO QUESTION about that so there is no reason to debate that point further.

The halo seat DOES make exiting the car more of a challenge in the event of a fire but the trade off is all in favor of the halo seat for the great, grand majority of crashes we have because they do not involve fire.

In closing, any concern about seat position creating an "advantage" is ridiculous, in the extreme, compared to the safety advantages of a properly installed halo seat. At the end of the day, making 25 year old street cars as safe as we can make them is what we should all be striving to do. We do not require all drivers to be a minimum of 200 pounds or to add ballast to the drivers seat area to make it all "fair". To even discuss a "rules" issue over this is beyond my comprehension and I trust that this is the end of it.

Jim Foxx

Big Dog wrote:


Jim I drove your #13 car. Never noticed the pedal extensions, but then again I never looked either. Given that it was your car my only intention was to have seating position I could work with. Optimum was never a consideration and it was not optimal for, but I never expected it to be that way.

Now talking about 1" or less and it pretty much a non-issue as that is all about seating comfort. Practically speaking we have more varition in how we like to sit than the effect of 1/2" to 1" spacers. Now start getting into 6" spacer or those crazy 12" ones on the subaru and that goes beyond just getting comfortable.


As for rules... It is my job to consider not just the reasonable, but the unreasonable. Give and inch and they take a mile, or possibly 12".

Seems very much that we need some clear limits to prevent people from merely adjusting seating for comfort and safety to the one of a competitive edge.

So expect the 2012 rules to put some clear limits on pedal spacers. The intent will be to allow some adjustment with in reasoable limits, but not allow something so big as to move the driver around in the car.

I will tell you that we (series directors) have not settled on a specifc limit yet and are working on it.

LOL - very true!

There are just so many things about this that are wrong.

First of all, mounting a seat on factory sliders is a BAD idea under any criteria. (Good for SCCA to ban that practice.)

Second, halo seats are the safest available.

Third, a tall driver has an advantage, as far as seat position, over a short driver. But so what?

Forth, a light driver has an advantage over a heavy driver. Again, so what? We do not have a "rule" to equalize this advantage.

Fifth, cookie cutter wheels are several pounds lighter than phone dials. We have no rule addressing this issue either.

A short driver will have to position a halo seat far enough back that it will not interfere with exiting the car if it is not on sliders and it should NOT be mounted on sliders for all the reasons SCCA has found.

A short (light) driver will need to use bigger pedal extensions than a taller driver in order to have the halo clear the window enough or be mounted on sliders or not be able to use a halo seat. The second and third options are not options, in my opinion.

How can anyone even think about a rule that would compromise safety for anyone in our sport? If a tragedy were to occur and someone was injured because of such a rule, it would seem that NASA and everyone involved with making such a rule could/should be liable legally. They would certainly be liable morally, in my opinion.

Eric, this obsession with making new rules at the drop of a hat needs to be rethought. We do not need a rule about this. We need to be promoting as much safety as we can and not inhibiting it. Just because Joe thinks there is a problem does not mean it is so.

Rule making needs to be done in a way that does not bring about unintended consequences. Limiting pedal extensions will hurt smaller, shorter drivers more than tall ones but what is the practical issue here? Moving a tall driver back an inch or two does not seem to be an issue. Moving a short driver back 6 to 12 inches (assuming that was necessary to give window clearance) should not be an issue either as they are lighter than a bigger driver so less of an impact.

Safety is the issue here. It is disturbing to me to even read about this, especially to be told that it will be a new rule next year without even considering the ramifications. We do NOT have the expertise to be promulgating rules that impact safety issues. Leave that for the experts.

Jim Foxx