Racer John Fitch Honored for Contributions to Highway Safety
14 January 1998
Racer John Fitch Honored for Contributions to Highway Safety
Impact Dynamics Director of Product Development Receives Stonex Award
WASHINGTON, Jan. 14 -- Longtime racing driver John Fitch
today received the 1998 Kenneth Stonex Award from the Transportation Research
Board, a part of the National Academy of Sciences, for his life-long
contributions in the field of roadside safety. The award is sponsored by
General Motors Corporation and presented by the Board's Roadside Safety
Features Committee.
For 18 years during the 50s and 60s, Fitch had a racing career that
included driving for Mercedes-Benz and the Cunningham Team, with major wins in
the Grand Prix of Argentina, the Mille Miglia, Tourist Trophy and Sebring (as
a ten-time entrant in the 12-hour enduro). Fitch also drove six times in the
Le Mans 24-hour race, finishing as high as 3rd. He was the first racing team
manager for Corvette (in 1955 and 1956) and he was the first general manager
of the Lime Rock race course.
During the latter part of his racing career he entered the field of
highway safety by designing, developing and successfully testing the Fitch
Barrier. This is the sand-filled plastic-barrel crash cushion that is
commonly seen in front of bridge abutments. Used in 50 states, it is credited
with saving thousands of lives.
"In all, John Fitch's achievements in road safety throughout the world,"
noted John F. Carney III, the Transportation Research Board committee chairman
who presented the award, "have spanned four and one-half decades. His
lifetime contributions have covered the full spectrum of highway safety -- the
roadside, the vehicle and the driver. All have resulted in significant
reductions in injuries and fatalities on the motorways of the world."
Additionally, he has made substantial contributions to advances in
motorsports safety. Working with Impact Dynamics LLC, he is currently
developing three circuit safety designs and a driver capsule for the
contemporary racing scene. All are designed to reduce the velocity of a mass
over a distance at a rate survivable by humans. The Cunningham Inertial
Barrier is a downsized version of the proven highway barrier -- used in arrays
of sacrificial modules, they will stop an errant race car from 100 mph in 30
feet at 10Gs, a rate that is tolerable to the human body. The Displaceable
Barrier is a guardrail that is mounted on skids instead of posts sunk into the
ground -- upon impact, it moves up to ten feet, which can reduce the impact to
a fraction of what it would be otherwise, and it redirects the vehicle. The
Compression Barrier, primarily for oval tracks, utilizes thick-walled
resilient elastomer cylinders between a guardrail and the concrete wall, to
offer nearly three feet of crush, plus a redirecting function. And, for the
race car proper, the Fitch Driver Capsule is a protective trough-like seat
that incorporates a helmet tether to reduce brain shock trauma and a shear-pin
mounting that provides energy-absorbing forward travel.
The Stonex Award takes its name from Kenneth A. Stonex, a General Motors
engineer. Mr. Stonex was active in the 1940s and 1950s, conducting tests and
studies at the GM Proving Grounds in Michigan. Many of the concepts developed
by Stonex and GM to eliminate hazardous terrain and obstacles have been
incorporated in the U.S. Interstate Highway System and urban freeway networks.
SOURCE Impact Dynamics LLC
