I'm interested in being cooler.

I've heard that cool suits have a lot of failures and that a non-working cool suit is very hot. Anecdotally, two of my friends had "cool suit stopped working" during races at thunderbolt monday/tuesday this week.

I've been looking at helmets with forced air. It seems to me that blowing air on the top of my head would remove a lot of heat, is a lot simpler than a cool suit, and no worse than nothing in the case of a failure.

Has anyone tried top or side air helmets? Are there fitting issues with top helmets and racing seats?

Any other driver cooling ideas? 

 You could try this...

www.coolshirt.net/racing-liquid-cooler.html


If that doesn't fit your budget John and Allan have been trying the top mounted helmet blower thingy. They seem to like it and I understand it doesn't interfere with anything. Cool air to the head would seem to be all we need given our longest races are typically 60-90 minutes.

Last year at Tremblant John was experimenting with his fancy helmet cooling system. Not being convinced that increased intelligence was going to help me go faster over corners 1-2-3, I instead took my blower fan and ducted it to point at my crotch. Presto! That was my first overall race win!

So far I'm not really liking the helmet cooler. Mid-Ohio was the first time I really gave it a try and I didn't like how it was either pushing or pulling my head. Every time I entered a straight I would have to reach behind my head and adjust the hose. Obviously I didn't have the hose mounted effectively, but I haven't figured out how to best do it. At the moment it's hanging from a bungee cord, which I thought would allow it to move around enough not to interfere with my head moving, but that didn't work out for me.

That cool shirt thing is more outside my budget than I could have imagined a cool shirt could possibly be. Thank you for opening my eyes. (For anyone who hasn't looked, this is not the coolshirt you see people using at bmwcca events...)

Thinking about it I can see allan's problem. I'd thought of the static hose placement problem but not the dynamic hose placement problem. Obviously you need something involving drawer rollers, a swinging boom and maybe a sewing machine.  I'll have to sit in my car and see what is going on with the back of my head. I was thinking of a placement coming in from the side: maybe over the net. I think this would inevitably push my head sideways if there was enough extra hose for forward and back movement. I've actually purchased the hose and the blower, but not the big investment which is the helmet. The hose and blower would be useful on their own mounted to point at my face or  maybe the parts peter apparently uses for thinking during races. It would be really cool if you could somehow cause the blower to push air inside the suit instead of just the helmet.

I appreciate the inpute.

Hey, anyone want to buy a helmet cooling system? I took mine out of the car. I figured saving the 15-20lbs would make it easier to keep ahead of Mark.

what cooling system do you have?

I recently bought an RPCM cool vest from pegasus for about $180us.

It uses inserts with a phase change liquid. You cool the inserts in your cooler and then stick them in the vest. After the inserts lose the "yikes!" cold from the cooler, they maintain 58 degrees f for a couple of hours. Longer than a club race anyway.

The inserts add about 2 inches to your "thickness" which brought my shoulder straps close to their limit.
I don't have a lot of thickness. Other people might find the loss of 2" of front to back room more of an issue.
I'm the kind of guy who wonders why people ever remove their steering wheel.

You want to be sure to cool the inserts "flat" as they are hard when they are cold and you could have a painful lump in your back until they warm up a little.

The vest worked for me. I went from "am I cooking my brain?" hot to "hmm, I suppose I'm kind of hot" during races. It worked better with nothing under the vest (rather than say, a tshirt). I was never too cold.

You can tell that the vest was keeping you cool when you see how much of your ice melts between races.

Much lower tech and probably lighter than a cool shirt install. It was a win for me.

Sorry for taking so long to respond. I have this one: www.fastraceproducts.com/page/fastraceproducts/PROD/helmetcooling/fa123cp

If you think about it... the overpriced Stand 21 all knit suit is the cheapest way to keep the temps down. I wish I'd thought of it before I bought my suit.

Ike has one and says sometimes he feel's cold and has to put on a coat.