Over the weekend the family and I were at the Nike Outlet Store. My son asked if he could get a couple of the Dri-Fit shirts. Since my brain immediately relates about 95% of everything I hear to racing in some way or another, I responded, "sure, but remember you can't wear it under your race suit".
Simpson published a notice awhile back about the danger of wearing synthetic materials under fire suits. I may have shared it on this forum before, but I thought it was worthy of posting again as a reminder to all of my racing friends.
http://simpsonraceproducts.com/pdf/SafetyUnderGarments.pdfI have seen so many kids at the track wearing this type of shirt. They are great for helping them keep cool, so it sounds like the perfect solution to a hot day and heavy, hot safety equipment. Unfortunately, these synthetic shirts; such as the ones from Nike, Under Armour, Addidas, etc pose a major safety risk in the event of a fire. Did you know that an SFI 3.2A/1 suit has a TPP rating of 6 which means it offers 3 seconds of protection from a fire before 2nd degree burns occur? When a synthetic material is placed into this equation, melting may occur even more quickly.
We are very fortunate that the sanctioning bodies do a pretty nice job of helping our kids race safely by mandating the proper safety equipment; however, there are many things that we can do to ensure that our kids don't just have adequate protection, that they have the best protection available.
This is a good topic for your next club meeting. It may sound very obvious to some; however, I think there are many parents that may never think about stuff like this. Honestly, I didn't until I came across this article by Simpson.
Sorry to stay on this soap box so long. Happy and safe racing!