Category: friday feature

By David G. Firestone

Last week, I covered Shea Holbrook in her Taylor Motorsports Prodcuts driver suit, this week, I’m gonna cover Shane Westerfield in his Taylor Mototsports driver suit. Shane is a former drag boat racer, who has moved to Top Alcohol Funny Car or TAFC. He has a couple of event wins, including two in national events, one at the 2013 Texas Fall Nationals, and one at the 2014 Spring Nationals, as well as a number of regional wins. In 2012, he started wearing a Taylor Motorsports Products driver suit.This is a natural partnership as Westerfield and Dennis Taylor both got started in drag racing and both raced Top Alcohol Funny Car. Dennis was proud of this suit, displaying it on his Facebook page. The suit is an SFI 3-2A/20 rated. This is a very durable and heavy suit, preferred by drag racers. The suit is very heavy and it weighs about 8 pounds and feels like a 5 layer suit. Westerfield can be seen wearing this design in both his national event wins, but I can’t say for sure he wore them for those wins. It is sponsored by CP Carrillo, which is a high end racing piston manufacturer.

The suit shows light use, with some scuffing of the material.The collar has a Velcro closure design with CP CARILLO embroidered into it. Unlike the Shea Holbrook suit there is a warranty tag.

The right chest features an A1 TECHNOLOGIES PERFORMANCE RACING FASTENERS logo.

The left chest features SHANE WESTERFIELD embroidered into it, and a Taylor Motorsports logo embroidered below it.

The front torso has a CP Carillo logo. I really like this color scheme by the way.

The belt is outlined in a light blue, but has no adornment.

The legs have no adornment whatsoever and they have standard cuffs.The shoulders feature unadorned blue and black epaulets, which are unadorned. The right sleeve feautres an American flag logo, a TAYLOR MOTORSPORTS PRODUCTS logo, and a CP CARRILLO logo, no television logos, and arm restraints built in, to keep his arms close inside the car. This is a popular modification among dragster drivers.

The left sleeve features the same basic design as the right sleeve, but the SFI rating replaces the American flag, and the restraint has an SFI rating on it.

The back of the suit is completely unadorned.

Next week, I’m gonna keep the drag racing train rolling, with a piece on Cory McClenathan…see you then!

By David G. Firestone

I recently found out about Taylor Motorsports Products. I thought at first they were a new company, but, according to their website, “Taylor Motorsports Products was founded in 1979 by Dennis Taylor. Dennis has been immersed in the motorsports world for most of his life starting with his days at Orange County International Raceway in the late sixties and his time on the road with fuel dragsters and Funny Cars. But, Taylor’s involvement did not stop at drag racing; he has been instrumental in product development for many racing competitors in all aspects of motorsports. For over 30 years, Dennis Taylor has been on the leading edge of safety innovation combining his eye for detail, perfection and quality with the most challenging safety needs of competitors in drag racing to open wheel to off road and more. Today, Taylor Motorsports Products has a comprehensive line of hundreds of custom designed and hand made products from driver’s suits to complete restraint systems.” Indeed, they make a number of different product for racing safety.

A lot of driver suit manufacturers will use driver endorsements to promote their products, but for a while I couldn’t find any driver who wore Taylor stuff, then I stumbled upon this Shea Holbrook driver suit from 2011. Shea developed her interest in racing after attending the Richard Petty Driving Experience in 2006. Since then she has raced in the Pirelli World Challenge in the SCCA, and a jet dragster driver in the IHRA. In 2011, she gained K&N Filters as a sponsor. During that season, she wore this suit.

There are a number of small variations of the suit, but she can clearly be seen wearing this suit in a February 2011 photo. A photo from April at Long Beach shows a different patch arrangement, though she does appear in this suit in several photos. The suit itself is a triple layer suit with SFI 3-2A/5 rating.

The collar has a Velcro-shut collar with a K&N logo. Interestingly, there is no warranty tag anywhere on the suit.

The right chest features a WORLD CHALLENGE and an SCCA PRO RACING logo embroidered into it.

The left chest features a LUCAS OIL PRODUCTS logo embroidered into it.

The front torso features a K&N logo embroidered into it.

SHEA HOLOBROOK is embroidered into the belt, which is outlined in red.

The legs have red stripes up the legs, and small TAYLOR MOTORSPORTS PRODUCTS logos on the legs. The cuffs are standard cuffs.

The shoulders have no adornment on the epaulets. Interestingly there are no Taylor Motorsports logos on the shoulders at all.

The right sleeve features an American Flag design, a TAYLOR MOTORSPORTS PRODUCTS logo, a SUNOCO logo, and a K&N television logo

The left sleeve features the SFI 3-2A/5 rating, a TAYLOR MOTORSPORTS PRODUCTS logo, a RACE KEEPER logo, and the K&N television logo.

The back of the suit has a couple of logos, and some light wear is visible.

The back of the neck itself is unadorned, but just below there is SHEARACING.COM and a K&N logo embroidered into the black material.

I have since found another example of a Taylor Motorsports Products suit, but I’ll save that for next week.

By David G. Firestone

The driver suit has become much more than a safety feature. It has become a marketing tool. So much so that it leaves the track and moves to television, magazine ads, and corporate events. If you look at driver suit design circa 1990, the suits have big sponsor logos, and the smaller logos are thrown on any which way they can. Fast forward to today, and, when it comes to race suits, every logo is in a specific place, nothing is left to chance.

Fisher Price makes toys for babies and infants, and apparently they had a race car during the late 1980’s to early 1990’s. This promotional driver suit was made for that team. It’s made of the polyester and has the feel of a wind breaker. There are a number of auto part logos, but they are patches with sublimated logos instead of sewn logos. There was some thought to the design.

There are a number of race suits that were created for promotional purposes. This example comes from AOL circa 2003. AOL hosted an event at Laguna where a number of clients got to drive race cars. Each driver was issued one of these denim suits. It has a small AOL logo on the front chest, and a larger logo on the back torso. Other than that, there are no logos anywhere else on the suit.

When Bobby Labonte was sponsored by Ask.com in 2009, a series of these replica driver suits based on Labonte’s driver suit were produced, possibly for a commercial. This suit was made by Simpson Race Products, but isn’t made of Nomex, and it has a warranty label stating as such.  Aside from the Ask.com logos, and the Peel Me design, there are no logos, but it is obvious there was a lot of thought that went into the design.

By David G. Firestone

The driver suit has become much more than a safety feature. It has become a marketing tool. So much so that it leaves the track and moves to television, magazine ads, and corporate events. If you look at driver suit design circa 1990, the suits have big sponsor logos, and the smaller logos are thrown on any which way they can. Fast forward to today, and, when it comes to race suits, every logo is in a specific place, nothing is left to chance.

Fisher Price makes toys for babies and infants, and apparently they had a race car during the late 1980’s to early 1990’s. This promotional driver suit was made for that team. It’s made of the polyester and has the feel of a wind breaker. There are a number of auto part logos, but they are patches with sublimated logos instead of sewn logos. There was some thought to the design.

There are a number of race suits that were created for promotional purposes. This example comes from AOL circa 2003. AOL hosted an event at Laguna where a number of clients got to drive race cars. Each driver was issued one of these denim suits. It has a small AOL logo on the front chest, and a larger logo on the back torso. Other than that, there are no logos anywhere else on the suit.

When Bobby Labonte was sponsored by Ask.com in 2009, a series of these replica driver suits based on Labonte’s driver suit were produced, possibly for a commercial. This suit was made by Simpson Race Products, but isn’t made of Nomex, and it has a warranty label stating as such.  Aside from the Ask.com logos, and the Peel Me design, there are no logos, but it is obvious there was a lot of thought that went into the design.

By David G. Firestone

Editor’s note, I had a post ready to go this week, but because of the pit fire at the Xfinity Series Race on Friday, I will revisit an article I did last year on pit crew suits.

When you say “driver suit” you think of names like Simpson, Sparco, Impact!, OMP, Stand 21, and Momo, you don’t automatically think of Oakley. Oakley started in 1975 as a sunglasses company by Jim Jannard in his garage in Foothill Ranch California. He got the name from Oakley, his English Setter. He went from working in his garage to one of the biggest sunglasses companies in the world. They design eyewear for athletes, the military, skiers, and, starting in the late 2000’s, motorsports apparel.

Oakley makes a number of racing items, the most prominent being driver suits. IndyCar drivers Justin Wilson, Ed Carpenter, Mike Conway, and Josef Newgarden all wear Oakley driver suits as do Alex Bowman, Ryan Truex, Martin Truex Jr., Clint Bowyer, Jeff Burton, Michael Waltrip, and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. in NASCAR and Tony Schumacher in the NHRA. While they make suits for the top drivers in the sport, for some reason they don’t seem to sell suits through their own site, you have to go to a third-party site to buy their racing suits…which to me seems odd, because no one else ever does that. This particular suit was worn by Jason Romesburg, who was the rear tire changer for Paul Menard in 2010. Menard had a decent season, with a top 5, and 6 top 10’s and 17 laps led. The suit shows heavy use, with the right cuff on the pant leg destroyed. In addition to the damage to the pant leg, what strikes me about this suit is that the material seems so light. While it is safety certified, it does not feel like a Nomex suit. It is very light for a suit of its size.

The suit is a two-piece and the jacket does not show as much wear as the pants, and I understand the reason. The logo about the Menard’s logo is for Mastercraft Doors. Paul Menard races with Menard’s on the quarter panel and a rotating set of sponsors on the hood. Mastercraft Doors was on the hood for 3 races in 2010, the Brickyard 400, the Carfax 400 at Michigan, and the Ford 400 at Homestead. While the jacket doesn’t show as much wear, it does show some staining on the sleeves. There are stains on the white area of the sleeves. Since Romesburg was a tire changer, this is to be expected.

The two piece suit is very popular with pit crews because it has the same fire protection as a one piece but with less restriction than a one piece. If you have ever worn a one-piece jumpsuit you know that it does restrict movement, as opposed to a jacket and pants of the exact same size. So when you are changing 4 tires in 14 seconds, you need every edge you get. What I don’t see on the jacket are arm gussets. These would be used to add movement without subtracting fire protection. I have two theories on this, either the suit fit well enough that they weren’t needed, or because the crews were switching jackets so often that expense or time dictated that arm gussets couldn’t be used.

One detail I love are the television logos on the sleeves. The dual logos on the sleeves look good and actually work well for both sponsors. The suit actually looks pretty good, but I do not like the quilt pattern on the legs, because it isn’t represented on the jacket, and it does look pretty odd in this respect. It does look like the two were designed and made by different people. I’m also amazed by how lackluster the warranty label is… That is the shortest warranty label I have ever seen on a modern suit. Let’s compare it to a Simpson tag…Wow that is a short warranty label, also, I don’t think a skull and crossbones don’t belong on this kind of suit, but it does say what it needs to say, just in a much shorter form than most driver suits.

In short, Oakley is making decent suits, and they are doing what they are designed to do, protect the driver from fire. I think Oakley suit could catch with minor league racers, provided they start marketing them better. The fact that they don’t sell them through their own website, and provide more info on the drivers who wear their suits make it hard to sell them to the general public. Puma, which has a lot of talent on its roster too, does not want to sell through its own website. Why they don’t is a mystery, as there is a lot of money in these suits, and people will pay for high quality suits made by a reputable company.

By David G. Firestone

The 2015 Toyota Pro/Celebrity race is behind us. It was a good one for sure. It had a decent amount of talent, including:

Antron Brown (NHRA veteran, Top Fuel driver)

Brett Davern (2014 champion)

Donna Feldman (model/TV host/actress)

Willie Gault (former NFL WR, Olympic athlete)

Nathan Kress (actor)

James Maslow (musician)

Steve Mason (ESPN Radio host)

Mark McGrath (lead singer, Sugar Ray)

Raul Mendez (actor)

Joshua Morrow (actor)

Dave Pasant (Producer)

Robert Patrick (actor)

Mekhi Phifer (actor)

John Rzeznik (guitarist/Goo Goo Dolls frontman)

Alfonso Ribeiro (two-time race winner)

Dara Torres (Olympic swimming legend, 2002 race winner)

Rutledge Wood (NBC Sports Group NASCAR/motors contributor and 2013 race winner)

In a 10 lap race that saw some crashes and some great racing, Alfonso Ribeiro was the overall and pro winner, with Dave Pasant wining the celebrity category.

When you race in the Toyota Pro/Celebrity race, you get to keep your driving gear. I discussed this in my Steve Lundquist article. He won two gold medals in the 1984 Olympics in swimming, then came back and raced in the 1985 event. The competitors are given special training and safety instructions. Even though there have been a decent number of crashes, no serious injuries have occurred.

This single layer suit shows heavy use, with stains and scuff marks on the arms. It has a nice vintage look to it.

The cowl contains an older version of the Simpson warranty label.

the right chest features a VALVOLINE logo and STEVE LUNDQUIST embroidered into it. The left chest features a vintage racing stripe design, with TOYOTA MOTORSPORTS, BRIDGESTONE, GRAND PRIX OF LONG BEACH and ND SPARK PLUGS patches on the stripes.

As there are no primary sponsors of the cars, there are no logos on the torso as primary sponsors.

The rights shoulder does not have an epaulet, or any adornment.

The right sleeve has an EARL’ S patch and a BLISTEN SHOCK ABSORBERS patch. There are no logos at the end of the sleeve, and heavy wear on the back of the sleeve.

The left shoulder, like the right shoulder does not have an epaulet. The stripe pattern terminates at the hem of the shoulder.

The left sleeve features a SIMPSON RACE PRODUCTS patch, and a JIM RUSSELL RACING SCHOOL patch. There isn’t much wear here.

The back of the suit shows no real wear, and has no patches or design present.

This set of orange gloves came with the suit.  They show decent use.

These come up for auction every now and again, and I personally like them as they are racing memorabilia and celebrity memorabilia at the same time.