Just released...overalls for £78 and only fuel guy to have them this year, good news all round and an excellent compromise, well done to all involved... Dear All Thanks for all the emails and despite what you think I do understand your points of view. However, I also hope you can understand mine. We had two bikes catch fire in pit lane during TT 2014 – within a space of a couple of days. Understandably, I received a letter from the Health & Safety Executive and the Office of Fair Trading making it quite clear that changes had to be made. I also believe if we spoke to the mechanic concerned who was injured by one of the bike fires – he would also have a tendency to agree. I make no apologies for this next statement, but for too long lip service has been paid to the pit lane fire regulations and the requirements placed on pit crews to wear fire retardant overalls. I would say in most cases, teams have gone for the £15-£20 cheap fire retardant overalls normally worn by welders as opposed to overalls that meet motor racing standards suitable for refuelling purposes. This has to change. James Buckett has sent me a link to a website (given below) which would fit the requirement for the person doing the refuelling. The link is; advanced-wear.co.uk/proban.html These race overalls meet ISO EN533 specification and are suitable, they come complete with collars, cuffs, ankle, zips, etc) at a cost of £78 inc vat. For this year only – given the time constraints - the person doing the refuelling has to wear an advanced spec together with the balaclava/goggles or the balaclava/full face helmet and gloves - the remainder of the team may wear what has prevailed in the past. However, please note that for next year, all pit crew team members will be required to wear proper fire retardant clothing and not the welders overalls which has gone before. This should alleviate the cost on the Teams and also provide satisfactory protection to the individual responsible for administering the fuel. I know there are some competitors/teams who are already in possession of fire retardant overalls/balaclavas/gloves etc approved by the FIA – and these are fine. Moving forward, we will be holding discussions with a couple of manufacturers about the provision of a Dry Break System which will be introduced for next year. What we want to avoid is any increase in the speed of fuel delivery, which at the moment is about right – this does not need to be any quicker for varying reasons. I hope the above has clarified the situation and eased the financial constraints on competitors and Teams. I will post this on the IOM TT forum and by way of this email would ask that Caroline/Bruce forward this email to all competitors and teams. Kind regards Gary Thompson MBE BEM General Secretary Telephone: 01788 566414 Fax: 01788 573585 Website: acu.org.uk CONFIDENTIALITY AND DISCLAIMER NOTICE This e-mail is intended for the Addressee only and its contents should not be copied or disclosed. The views expressed in this mail are those of the author and do not reflect the views of the Auto-Cycle Union Ltd or its subsidiary companies unless specifically stated. We do not accept liability for any changes after this mail left our system. We recommend you run your own virus check before opening as we cannot accept liability for damage sustained by any software virus.
Posted on: Mon, 21 Jul 2014 22:00:00 +0000
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