There are lots of things in racing that you can afford to learn the hard way. What's the best setup for your car? What air pressure should you run? Does a neon yellow and orange paint scheme look good on the racetrack? You get the idea.
But when it comes to your safety equipment, that's one area that you really need to nail down right from the start. But never fear, Circle Track is here to help. We recently spent a long evening at the Performance Automotive shop owned by longtime racer and car builder Les Lesneski. Lesneski was building the framework to install a new Butler Built seat into a Monte Carlo being built to race in the Super Street class (basically a high-end Street Stock).
Last month we followed along to show you how Brian Butler of Butler Built racing seats fitted racer Jason Gulledge for this aluminum racing seat. Now we'll show you how to get it in the car.
Granted, different car builders have their own little tricks when it comes to installing a racing seat and belts into a race car. But the main points are to build a hoop attached to the rollcage that both the seat and belts can be attached to. After that it's just a matter of properly attaching the seat and belts to the hoop and rollcage. This way, in the event you take a hit in the driver-side door hard enough to crush the door bars, you--safely inside your racing seat--will move right along with it instead of being tied down while the bars are pushed into you.
As you will see, this chassis has a long way to go until it is ready to be called a race car. So the seat and belt installation is only roughed in since it will have to come back out again. Still, you will see more than enough to get you going on your own build.
<STRONG>1</STRONG> Here's what we are starting with. Gulledge purchased a car that another car builder had started but not finished. The floorpan was in poor shape, so Gulledge cut it out. By the time we arrived, Gulledge and car builder Les Lesneski had already put in the X-brace you can see here.
