Its ironic you guys bring this up. I was in a pretty scary roll over last week in my UTV while pre-running for my first desert race last friday. I think this Hans - or the Simpson hybrid I was wearing really saved my neck.
I was on my 3rd lap on a 30 mile course at mile marker 24 when I was chasing a some green UTV in his dust trying to pass him when I ran upon a 24" tall speed bump at about 40 mph. I had about 6 foot notice as the guy in front of me must have slowed down to go over it and the dust cleared for just a second. I slammed on the brakes and the front tires climbed the bump and the UTV did a complete flip and landed squarely on the roof collapsing the cage just a little and then continued the forward momentum as it just grazed the back apron and flipped back on its wheels. The impact into the roof was pretty stout.
Both myself and my co driver had neck restrains on and that really slows down the travel speed of you neck by limiting you travel. We drove away from the incident slowly on an off track back road back to the pits to find the impact had unplugged wire connections under the dash and taco'd my cell phone. They want you to keep a cell phone on you to call for help if needed and the radio connection wont work. So I had the phone in my front pocket of my race suit for safe keeping.
You can see the roof damage in this picture. You can not see that the spreader bars on the cage are bent about .25 of an inch in the middle. I hugged the cage builder on Monday morning after winning my class and finishing 7th overall. I will always race with some kind of neck restraint, its just not worth it.
