Simpson: Belt not installed properly

Bill Simpson, who until recently was in charge of Simpson Performance Products, spoke through his lawyers in the same downtown Atlanta hotel where NASCAR gave the results of its six-month, US$1 million investigation.

The lawyers said that Earnhardt was urged by Simpson to install the belts at the correct angle, because the legendary driver was not installing the belt as recommended by the manufacturer.

"Bill Simpson told him for years that the way he was using the belts was not safe," said Robert Horn, one of Simpson's lawyers. "Dale listened, but his response was to do it the way he wanted to do it.

"We believe the NASCAR report failed to address that the material and workmanship of the system were of high-quality, appropriate for the application. There were no design defects. The seatbelts as manufactured by Simpson Performance Products met NASCAR rulebook requirements. The seatbelts as installed in the vehicle did not conform to Simpson Performance Products installation requirements. If Simpson belts are properly installed, they will not fail. The separation of the left lap belt was not the result of a design or manufacturing defect, but improper installation."

Simpson recommended that the belts be mounted 2 1/2 inches forward of the extended back line of the seat, but he claims Earnhardt mounted his 5 inches behind the back line of the seat.

According to Charles Manning, an engineer with Accident Reconstruction Analysis of Raleigh, North Carolina indicated the rotation of the belt did not give the material the full strength of its capability.

"Testing the belt that way showed it had a reduction in strength of approximately 60 percent," Manning said. "A belt assembly that would ordinarily sustain approximately 5,000 lbs. per belt will fail at approximately 2,000 lbs. per belt when there is significant rotation of the adjuster."

The seat belt failure was termed "dumping" during the accident. This meant the adjuster mechanism became cockeyed (the lower end moved forward) and the webbing in the left side adjust mechanism bunched up toward the lower end of the mechanism.

Belt webbing works best when it remains flat and all of its fibers are pulled at once. When a belt dumps, a greater stress is placed on fewer fibers, and there is a greater risk of tearing. The concept is similar to a heavy sheet of paper. It is difficult to separate the sheet if both ends are pulled straight, but if the paper is pulled on one side only and rips across, it will tear quickly.

Because of the critical angle of impact, being hit by Ken Schrader's car, the velocity Earnhardt's car was traveling, the rapid deceleration once Earnhardt's Chevrolet hit the wall and the separated seat belt all played key roles in Earnhardt's death.

However, the manufacturer contends that had Earnhardt's belts been installed at a proper angle, it may have helped stop the chain reaction of events that led to the ring fractures at the base of his skull that was responsible for his death.

"We provide every competitor with a set of instructions how to install the belt," said James H Voyles, one of Simpson's attorneys. "If you don't follow the set of instructions with a manufacturer's product, you may encounter a problem."

Last month, Simpson resigned from the company he founded because he had received death threats from angry fans blaming him for Earnhardt's death.

However, one of the men who conducted the report for NASCAR said not one single scenario by itself led to Earnhardt's death.

"I think you can't identify a single factor that says 'It's this and not that'," said Dr James Raddin, an investigator who conducted the six-months of research for NASCAR's official crash report. "I suspect if you make changes in a number of those areas, you might affect the outcome in this particular crash but I don't think you can assign a specific factor and say 'That's it' to the seclusion of the others."

Raddin was careful to point out that the belt was not misadjusted. However, he did say that it was not mounted in the same manner that other teams mouth their belt assemblies.

"I can tell you very precisely that it was not a result of the mispositioning based upon the findings that I showed you with the way the lock bar was initially positioned straight across the belt," Raddin said. "So it was not a misadjusted belt. Having said that, there are a number of potential causes of dumping, some of which can simply be asymmetric loads. Whether it is that or whether it's some aspect of the restraint or whether it's some way in which the mounting or installation or routing of that belt occurred, again, similar to what we've talked about in the injury causation there's no way to say that it was 34 percent this and 16 percent that and some percent the other.

"Those are factors which, taken together, at least provide us with opportunities that we could do some things about. You know, we can look at ways to make adjusters more friendly. We can look at ways to make routing better. We can look at ways to improve both of those, and that's what NASCAR has asked John Melvin and asked me to do in this restraint study. Our attempt here has not been to try to do an analysis of blame; it's an attempt to understand the factors and what we can do going forward to make a better system."

Raddin did not lay blame on Earnhardt's positioning of the belt, saying that it had worked in the past when the driver was involved in collisions.

"I think those variations would be to find both with regard to some of the recommended procedures, as well as variations from the way in which a number of other people install their belts," Raddin said. "But, again, those belts were installed not in a haphazard fashion. That was something that Dale Earnhardt had done for a significant period of time and successfully in the past."

There were rumours that Earnhardt's belt had actually been cut by one of the safety workers who tried to revive and extricate Earnhardt at the crash scene at Daytona International Speedway.

Buried deep inside the second volume of the Official Accident Report - No. 3 Car, is a Florida Offense/Incident Report from the Daytona Beach, Florida Police Department. On May 29, 2001, NASCAR president Mike Helton, Winston Cup Director Gay Nelson met with police officials to inspect the belt.

According to the police report: "When placing the individual belts into the configuration of installation in a vehicle, it was readily observed the left lap belt was in two separate pieces. Closer examination with a magnifying glass revealed the belt fibres torn with some exposed fibre ends in a 'ball' as if melted. There was no indication appearing consistent with a cut from an edged instrument, and no abrasions were observable in the areas adjacent to the break in the belt ends. The location of the break in the belt was consistent with the location of the restraint-adjusting bar.

"A demonstration by NASCAR president Mike Helton was performed at this time. Using the same model of Simpson belt, Mr. Helton cut the belt material using a pocketknife and the cut ends examined. The cut belt did not have any similarity to the belt ends that was involved in the crash."

Flanked by his attorneys and crash experts, but refusing to speak himself, Simpson listened intently to questions from reporters and the answers given to them by his team of experts.

Is a lawsuit against NASCAR a possibility?

"Just because I'm a lawyer doesn't mean I intend to sue people," Horn said. "There is no question that Simpson Performance Products has had a significant drop-off in sales. We will assess that situation."

Richard Childress, Earnhardt's longtime team owner, was at the investigation announcement, but left without answering any questions regarding the installation of the seat belt.