ANDRA commences the difficult task of certifying its racers' cars' safety and compliance

Following the hardening of the insurance market in recent times, ANDRA has again brought forward the issue of SFI-type certification for drag racing vehicle parts in Australia and at the moment there is a consultation program underway between Division Directors and Group One competitors to determine a path of action.

SFI Foundation Inc. is a spin-off of the Specialty Equipment Manufacturers Association (SEMA), established in the mid-70s to provide product specifications and testing programs for aftermarket automotive equipment. SFI now operates as a foundation fully independent of SEMA, yet dependent on all segments of the industry, both for funding and participation.

SFI maintains its own managerial staff and oversees technical committees. The foundation is funded by companies which voluntarily participate in the specs program, along with financial support from member sanctioning bodies. As a result of this support, SFI has developed programs for almost eighty different products used by manufacturers, motorsports groups, and consumers worldwide.

"Drag racing in Australia has been skirting this issue for the last three or four years," said ANDRA CEO Tony Thornton, "but since the fatal accident at a driving event in Sydney in February and where race officials are facing criminal charges, the focus on resolving this sort of matter has been much more concentrated.

"It all comes back to insurance, and the willingness to pursue legal options, and, if the Sydney case is any example, for legal authorities to apportion blame, even to the level of criminal charges, over the application of regulations. Providing minimum levels of risk for racers and fans, maintaining our insurance covers at sustainable levels and ensuring our officials have solid technical back-up must be the priorities for ANDRA and the sport.

"We've used SFI standards as a base here for a number of years, but we can't continue to ignore the issue of certifying those standards any more, and we must find an acceptable solution to determine that the appropriate level of equipment is being used."

The areas currently covered by SFI certification in Australia are:

•   Supercharger burst panels
•   Top Bike cylinder head restraints
•   Safety harnesses (there are additional options)
•   Auto trans shields
•   Protective clothing and helmets (there are additional options)
•   Chassis specifications in Top Fuel, Funny Car and Top Door

ANDRA is also considering the introduction of further specifications, for bellhousings, clutches and wheels. The timetable for such moves is to be addressed by consultation between the Division Directors and racers.

The issue, for Australian racers appears as much to be not one of whether some form of certification is required, but the need to keep it within manageable costs.

Top Doorslammer Champion Victor Bray had strong reservations about the process if it involved SFI.

"I'm not against the concept of inspections. I just think it's impractical trying to do it through SFI. There's enough qualified and knowledgeable people here in Australia who can check whatever needs to be checked without having to bring in someone from the USA. There's some bad equipment out there, and you've only got to look at the cars to see it, but there's also people here who can deal with it.

"If you got, say, Murray Anderson, Bill Jones, Terry Straube or Wayne Daley in the scrutineering shed at the Winternationals, and paid them, say $500 a day we could all take our bellhousings to them and pay, maybe, $50 each to have them checked. It'd take five minutes for each and be a lot cheaper than having to fly in someone from the USA.

"We don't need US people here doing it, largely because of the dollar. It'll cost between $5000 and $10,000 per team and would be enough to put some racers out of business."

Reigning Top Alcohol Champion Gary Phillips agreed with Bray on the need for checking of some kind, but argued that it wasn't Group One that was the problem.

"In the United States, SFI checking goes all the way to the bottom level of the sport," said Phillips. "It's not just Professional class equipment that is certified, but also things like flex plates and torque converter shields and neck braces, the works. Why just limit it to Group One here? Because they think Group One racers can afford to pay?

"Let me tell you that the biggest problem areas are in some of the brackets where they buy second and third hand parts that once started life with Group One racers.

"And simply saying, well we'll extend it to Group Two doesn't work either. It's like this silly rule about banning cast blower pulleys from Group One and two. It's revs that cause those things to fail, and 8000 rpm is 8000 rpm whether the engine's making 500 or 5000 horsepower.

"What about these non-ANDRA brackets like Supercharged Outlaws or Top Comp or Wild Bunch. That area is in as big a need of investigation as anywhere I can think of. It's all drag racing and it all goes down a drag strip."

"We don't disagree on issues like that," countered Thornton, while conceding that there were many cars in the non-championship blown categories running equipment that would not pass certification, "but you've got to start somewhere, and we're trying to come up with a workable option.

"I accept that you could put a Top Alcohol engine in a Comp car or a Supercharged Outlaws car, but at the moment it's the Group One racers who are going the quickest, and they would be putting more strain on clutches in Top Fuel and Top Doorslammer than anyone else, and, as I said, this is a major issue for the sport and you have to start somewhere."

"The ridiculous thing about it is that SFI certification comes with a disclaimer," Phillips continued, "which reads:

"What does that sound like to you. It sounds to me like this really doesn't mean anything at all. I've got the credentials to inspect and check Whipple blowers. I'm one of four people in the world with them, but are we going to fly in some guy from the USA at who knows what cost to do the same job.

"And as for checking clutches and clutch cans they must think we're the village idiots, because all they get is a visual check. Somebody simply looks at them and says, 'Yeah, that's a so and so,' and puts a sticker on it. Any qualfied guy can do it."

"I wish it was that simple," replied Thornton to that line of reasoning. "Yes, there are probably any number of people here who would be capable of checking most items, but are they willing to carry the level of insurance necessary to cover themselves and to stand up in court and swear that that clutch can which they certified, and which failed and resulted in an injury, met the required standard.

"We don't want to force anything in particular down racers' throats, and we certainly don't want to unncessarily increase costs, but how do we argue that it's okay for racers to send engines back to the USA - to have them rebuilt - and that happens, even if only rarely - but we didn't want to institute a system of safety-related parts certification because we didn't want to increase costs?

"That's why we are in this consultation process at the moment, to seek ideas that may resolve this issue. The problem, for all those logical reasons about having locals check and certify things, is that at the moment we have had nobody who has been prepared to put up their hand and say that they were prepared to take on the responsibility for this.

"Personally I doubt that SFI certification would cost too much. The system is in operation in Sweden, where the manufacturers accept Murf McKinney, who builds Top Fuel chassis, checking many different items. Spread over enough people, the costs per racer would not be that high."

"Clutch discs are another issue," argued Phillips. "I have them made locally. They are made from the same materials and on the same CNC machines as they do in the USA, but they're not SFI certified. There are a number of other racers here who do the same. They cost us about half of what they would if we had to pay freight and the exchange rate to have them imported.

"In the US, Top Fuel teams do one pass on them and then throw them away, they chuck them on the ground for fans or whoever to pick them up. Is a second hand disc with an SFI sticker safer than a brand new one, made from the same materials and on the same machines here without a sticker? I think not, but if we have to have SFI certification you can add thousands of dollars in running costs on my car, and plenty of others, simply to comply.

"They check the screw blowers, they spin test them, but there is no standard for Rootes blowers, and they're the ones most likely to fail. But everything else, other than seat belts, is essentially just visually checked. Even the seat belt manufacturers are just required to send in a random sample of their material every so often.

"If I get my bellhousing certified tomorrow and then blow up the clutch badly a week later, does that make my bellhousing safe for the next year? No. That's when they need to be checked, after a blow-up.

"Self regulation is pretty good here in the Group One brackets; it has to be if you want to operate at the level of Top Fuel, Top Alcohol, or Top Doorslammer.

"We can do our own. We have the expertise to check all this here in Australia, at a reasonable cost to the racing community, and avoid making somebody from the USA even better off than they are now.

"My estimate is that full SFI certification would cost me about $10,000 a year. The logistics and the cost would send everybody broke. We might as well tell all the Group One teams to tear up their licenses and give everyone a fishing pole."

This cost estimate was endorsed by Top Fuel racer Jim Read, who simply said there'd be "a riot amongst racers" if such a "financially top heavy" process was forced upon them.

Pro Stock Association president John O'Kearney stated that there was no considered response from his organisation at this stage, but he doubted there'd be any support for any system which imposed "excessive costs" upon racers.

However racer Tony Wedlock had another view. "In the USA they switch complete engine and clutches after each run, which is something which we simply can't justify here; nobody can. Because of this we need to adjust our clutches after each run, which means that I, and most Pro Stock racers, have had to cut holes in our bellhousings to perform this task. There isn't a clutch can in Australia that will meet an SFI certification, as far as I know."

"Look, the easiest thing for us would be to simply demand racers present their cars with full SFI certification on all parts, and that would be it," said Thornton. "We've led a charmed life but we can't afford to be over-confident about our good safety record. Insurance is a major, major issue for all motorsports these days.

"The notion of this costing up to $10,000 is, I think, greatly exaggerated. In the example of the way it is done in Sweden, three people can, I believe, check everything on all the cars. We don't race anywhere near as often as they do in the States, so there may be the opportunity to re-certify less frequently, so I could see even an SFI inspection with imported people costing as little as $250 a year, or less.

"We need to acknowledge that there's a potential to have to argue in a court of law that we did our best to ensure that the safest possible standards had been met.

"Public risk insurance is an expensive enough item as it is, and there can be claims for almost anything. There was a recent case in which a woman was awarded $90,000 for slipping on a piece of lettuce in a supermarket.

"We will be quite happy to accept a workable alternative on certification in Australia as long as it satisfies the legal requirements of ensuring we are meeting the necessary standards. If there are cheaper, more achievable options here we'd like to pursue them, however it would be necessary for ANDRA to establish its own standards, with testing and checking procedures to back them up. We've asked the Division Directors to canvass this with the racers."

The SFI Perspective - Carl Olson (SFI Foundation, Inc.)

SFI has been involved in dialogue with Tony Thornton and Morrie Huckel at ANDRA for some time regarding this matter. I'm under the impression that ANDRA and its NCC, are well aware of the benefits of a quality assurance program for safety related motorsports equipment.

They've just never totally embraced the SFI program because of the geographical and economic difficulties involved, combined with the traditional resistance of racers to embrace programs which complicate their lives, and require financial expenditures for purposes other than "going faster".

In the past months, as Australia apparently continues to embrace civil litigation with a passion, ANDRA has clearly faced up to the problems created by mounting liability exposures, insurance claims (and premiums) and unwelcome litigation. Together, we've been searching for ways to make the exisitng and proven SFI programs work in your part of the world.

The largest single impediment to this noble objective is the fact that the SFI Foundation, Inc. does not certify products. It's the original manufacturers that bear that responsibility, and it's their responsibility to provide SFI with test results and to conduct the required certification and re-certification inspections of their own products.

An approach which has worked well in other parts of the world, particularly Europe and Scandinavia, is for these manufacturers to designate agents, who are then authorised to conduct re-certification inspections in the field.

Because these agents clearly expose the manufacturer to potential liability, the manufacturer must be convinced that the agents will always perform their services in accordance with the standards and practices set down by the factory, and will always act in the manufacturer's best interest. Whether or not a manufacturer would appoint an agent who works for a sanctioning organisation is an issue we have yet to explore. Certainly, an argument could be made that a conflict of interest would arise.

As ANDRA continues to wrestle with this issue, the SFI Foundation is anxious to help find an equitable solution for all parties concerned. While it might seem prudent for ANDRA and the Australian drag racing community to pursue a certification system within Australia, I can assure you that such a system is far more complex and demanding than it might initially appear.

The SFI program delivers something referred to in US legal circles as "accepted industry-wide standards", to which manufacturers certify their products. The process by which these standards are developed is dictated by the US government. It's very comrpehensive, and requires a significant investment of time, effort and expense. To duplicate it in Australia would require the establishment of an organisation similar to the SFI Foundation, and would likely take many years to get "up to speed".

Undoubtedly, a more productive approach would be to find a way to implement the full range of SFI Quality Assurance Specifications and other programs in Australia, while protecting the interests of manufacturers, consumers and the sport. We believe there are ways in which this can be accomplished, at a minimum expense to all parties concerned.

As ANDRA and the Australian drag racing community explore their various options, it should be remembered that the ultimate objective is to make the sport as safe as possible for all parties concerned. While racing accidents are inevitable, it's in everyone's best interest to keep property losses, injuries and fatalities to an absolute minimum.

The SFI program has, in my opinion, succeeded in achieving these objectives. I believe it would make much more sense for ANDRA to embrace a proven program, which has been established and refined over a period of many years, than to attempt to establish a parallel program "down under". That's what we'll be working toward in the weeks and months ahead.

What does sfi certification cover?

SFI maintains a quality assurance program for a wide variety of automotive aftermarket and performance products. This catalogue of SFI specifications is used by many sanctioning bodies worldwide. In this list of drag racing related products, the number on the left is the SFI specification number followed by the product that is covered by the spec. The recertification period is the amount of time from the manufacture date when a product must be sent to the original manufacturer for inspection and then either recertified or replaced, based upon the findings of the inspection. For more information regarding any of these specifications, please contact the SFI office.