This is my personal experience with the hans device. I was co driver in the 23 car Today. In the second moto we spun out on the back stretch. After we spun, I'd say we were facing forward at about a 45 degree angle to the track. With the hans on you could not turn your head to look back up track to see if anyone was coming. In the mirrors all you could see was infield, so we were forced to just gas it with the wheel turned full lock to get going again. As soon as we got straightened out there comes Stef in the 769 truck swerving by. We felt bad about maybe pulling out right in front of her. After the race I went over and apologized for causing her to swerve around us.. Now if we didn't have the hans on we could have looked back up track and waited till she passed us to take off safely. I'm not dogging the hans but this was definitely one instance that it would have been safer for everyone if we didn't have the Hans on. This is the first time I've ever used one so maybe I had it set up wrong or something, I don't know.
The Hans limits you from turning your head side to side too much. Seems to me they are really designed for a forward motion sudden stop, like a head on into someone or thing. Great idea for Indy car or Nascar where everyone has multiple spotters, but In my opinion for Off Road racing, they limit your vision more than the benefit you get from them. I know when I drive I am constantly turning my head when I'm in close quarters with other cars. I think the Hans type devices are dangerous for this type of racing and there use should be re-thought. Does anyone feel this way? ..Id love to hear other opinions on Hans and the other devices people are using.

So I was doing a little research and I saw some HNRs that lets the tether slide freely in the device which would allow more rotation of your head. Does anyone have this type and do they let you turn your head enough to see well. The one we have was MFG in 2006 so maybe they have a better design out today....

Which HNR do you use?
From what I can see by helping 1022 set up their HNR's the Nexgens' allow the turning of your head.

Will,

Just for clarification, you did not pull out in front of Stephanie causing her to swerve. You were still stopped in the middle of the track when she came around the corner and was heading right for you. (It would have been a very hard collision.) But Stephanie pulled out some great driving skills and made a hard right turn to go around you. You started to go as her was already turning left to get back on course. I don't see how the HNR would have changed anything that happened. It was the fast thinking of Stephanie that kept that from being a major incident.

What if we would have backed up ??? Since we couldn't turn to look and see, something bad could have happened....If we didn't have the HNR it would have been easy to just look.......I know she ended up going by behind us. My point was we couldn't see back up the track with the HNR on to know how we should proceed.



Troy, It's an older HANS.... 2006. It has fixed tethers.

OK, now that I have had a chance to talk to the guys at HANS, they told me there is a "sliding tether" retro kit for the older models that will allow much more head rotation.... We will get them and see what happens.

Sliding tether retro fit may help.

Stephanie was in crash sequence mode trying to avoid like Heather said and did pull off some good driving to keep it on all 4's and from hitting you.

We had a co-dog that had a mirror on the end of a spatula. It worked great for looking all around including tires to see if they were flat.

The spatula thing is funny but could work for any blind areas....

Will, I use one with a co-driver. Can't use it by yourself though. Darn

We had a pretty nasty roll in the first Prairie City race. 1107 snap rolled three times and landed on its wheels. Driver and co-driver said they were very happy with the performance of the NexGen HNRs.

I was skeptical at first, but now I'm a true believer. They are much better than the neck donuts, though some of my folks supplement the NexGen with the donut.

Someone was complaining about no lateral rotation with their older unit. I'm getting about 10% rotation with my Hybrid Pro Rage. With my neck being broken, that isn't much less than I would normally get. It isn't great, but better than nothing. The new ones are adjustable. I might be able to get more, but at what cost to the viability of the unit?
da Bear