{"id":489769,"date":"2007-11-01T13:30:37","date_gmt":"2007-11-01T13:30:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportscardigest.com\/\/?p=60636"},"modified":"2024-01-08T15:05:55","modified_gmt":"2024-01-08T15:05:55","slug":"fitch-at-90","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.supercars.net\/blog\/fitch-at-90\/","title":{"rendered":"Fitch at 90"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>On August 4, 2007, an icon of American racing and my dear friend, John Fitch, turned 90 years old! In this day and age of medical advances plus many of us watching our diets and exercising, 90 is not nearly as unusual as in previous times. John, however has lived a life of achievement and adventure\u2026and still does. At some 15 years younger, I don\u2019t really enjoy walking very far with John because he tires me out. When I called a few weeks ago, he had just finished mowing his lawn.<\/p>\n

On August 6, it was my great honor to host his birthday party at my home in Redondo Beach, California. I wish I could have invited all of you, our faithful readers, but as it was, my family was almost in revolt due to the numbers who did come, among them Phil Hill. Davey Jordan\u2019s wife, Norma, brought the cake. Davey was John\u2019s teammate at the 1966 Sebring in Briggs Cunningham\u2019s Porsche 904. Bob Bondurant flew over from Phoenix to give John a copy of his just-published biography, Bob Bondurant, by Phil Henny.<\/p>\n

For the past few years, John has attempted to set a new record at Bonneville in a 300SL, the same model in which he won the Touring Class at the Mille Miglia in 1955. Last year he was rained out, but he told us at the party that he\u2019s going to try again this year.<\/p>\n

I have never heard of a more active nonagenarian. Fitch was in Los Angeles to attend a Society of Automotive Engineers conference held in Hollywood on August 7. Fitch and Ken Berg presented a paper: \u201cAre We Flat-Out for Survivable Deceleration? The 1955 Crash at Le Mans\u2014Its Impact on Racing.\u201d The following weekend, John was inducted into the Motorsports Hall of Fame. This is a typical Fitch schedule.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
A far cry from a \u201csafe\u201d circuit. John Fitch, at the wheel of his Mercedes 300SLR during the 1955 Targa Florio, where he and codriver Desmond Titterington finished 4th. Photo: Mercedes Benz<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Since the horrendous 1955 Le Mans accident, Fitch has been concerned with automotive safety. So concerned, in fact, that he has devoted much of his energies since his retirement as a race driver toward attacking some of the problems. His most notable achievement was the invention of Fitch Barriers, those ubiquitous yellow barrels gracing our freeways.<\/p>\n

Ken Berg supplied me with a copy of his and John\u2019s paper. I was told that after the SAE meeting, I could use some or all in one of my columns. I have tried to summarize and pick out what I think are high points:<\/p>\n

\u201cAuto racing has always been dangerous, both to participants and spectators. Death and injury is not a highly visible part of racing\u2026until it happens. Drivers can professionally tune out natural concerns for survival. Their attitudes may have lulled those others in racing that might be expected to influence automobile and auto-racing safety\u2014for everyone.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
In his pursuit of race safety, Fitch developed a more effective driver\u2019s seat. Photo: John Fitch<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cAre we pushing race safety improvement as fast as possible? What are the restraints to going flat out for \u2018survivable deceleration\u2019? Can the inertia that is restraining safety development be overcome to produce advances in safety as great as those occurring in mechanical and electronic technologies in automotive engineering?<\/p>\n

\u201cI am not happy with the progress in racing safety. It has been harder to make progress in racing safety than it was for highway safety.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll energy absorption that mitigates impact severity is governed by Newton\u2019s Laws of Motion. They require movement or travel of the decelerated element over a distance. It is the one and only factor involved. Driver restraints, in-car cushioning and driver\u2019s bodies, being flexible, compressible and extendable\u2014all reduce the Gs that impinge on the brain, heart and other vital areas of the body. Incredibly no one in academia or engineering seems to be aware of this. If they are, it has not appeared in the press to my knowledge.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cMy friend, USAF Colonel John Stapp, conducted deceleration tests in a 600 mph rocket sled and found 45 Gs to be the limit before the eye began to leave its socket.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
In recognition of the amount of Gs a human body can tolerate, John invented a guard rail that reduces the Gs on impact. Unfortunately, racing organizations and tracks for the most part have failed to adopt his innovation. Photo: John Fitch<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cMechanisms sufficiently sophisticated to exploit Newton\u2019s laws and the limit of Gs will be expensive relative to the simple means developed to date. More complex devices, such as my Displaceable Guardrail that moves on impact and my Driver Capsule with greater travel than the HANS device, are the next steps to greater driver safety. I have done more than 100 development crashes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe response from racing bodies has been typically an expression of gratitude for my efforts, along with wishes of good luck from their attorney\u2019s office, but expressing no technical interest or support, despite the outstanding success and visibility of the Fitch Inertial Barrier on the nation\u2019s highways for almost four decades.\u201d<\/p>\n

I think that John\u2019s views should be considered very carefully by all of us who are connected, in one way or another, with auto racing. In addition, everyone who drives or rides in a car\u2014and that\u2019s virtually all of us\u2014should be eternally grateful for John\u2019s dedication to highway safety.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On August 4, 2007, an icon of American racing and my dear friend, John Fitch, turned 90 years old! In this day and age of medical advances plus many of us watching our diets and exercising, 90 is not nearly as unusual as in previous times. John, however has lived a life of achievement and adventure\u2026and still does. At some 15 years younger, I don\u2019t really enjoy walking very far with John because he tires me out. When I called […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121,"featured_media":608502,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[263,255,18114],"tags":[18435,11429,18105],"class_list":["post-489769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-car-culture","category-news","category-people","tag-people","tag-john-fitch","tag-people-news"],"yoast_head":"\nFitch at 90<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Art Evans celebrates John Fitch\u2019s 90th birthday, and looks at where he\u2019s been, and amazingly, where he\u2019s going next.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.supercars.net\/blog\/fitch-at-90\/\" \/>\n<link rel=\"next\" href=\"https:\/\/www.supercars.net\/blog\/fitch-at-90\/2\/\" \/>\n<meta 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