A crash sent driver B.J. Joly to the hospital with serious injuries. What’s worse — the belts he bought from Amazon carried counterfeit SFI labels, according to the SFI Foundation.
The incident occurred during the crate 602 sportsman heat race at Grandview Speedway in Bechtelsville, Pennsylvania. As his car spun, another car hit him at full speed, just behind where he sat. Joly suffered a laceration on his kidney, fluid around his heart, and a collapsed colon. Now home recuperating, the accident will keep him away from his day job as a concrete construction worker for at least two weeks.
Joly, 34, of Oley, Pennsylvania, paired an Arai Profile helmet with a HANS device. Joly sat in a Kirkey full-containment seat within a 2008 chassis from Bicknell Racing Products.
“The chassis may need a new rear clip,” Joly said. “Everything on the left rear was pushed into the seat. The torsion bars and shock were blown out of the car and the mounts were shattered.”
He also used a RASTP five-point harness on Amazon. The belt brand is one unfamiliar to many in motorsports, including to the SFI Foundation.
SFI’s website did not list RASTP as a participating member for the SFI Spec 16.1 certification. Sometimes, companies, including many reputable ones, market their safety products under a different name from who manufactured them, a practice called “private labeling.” Nevertheless, the SFI label must contain the manufacturer’s name.
Outside Groove reached out to SFI to verify that the RASTP belts are SFI-certified. In turn, SFI purchased the belts off Amazon. They tested them on Monday, June 21.
“The RASTP harness appeared to meet the performance requirements of spec SFI 16.1 specification,” Mike Hurst, of SFI, said. “But, [the] RASTP manufacturer is basically unknown. With SFI programs, it is the manufacturer who is doing the certifying, so obviously they need to be known so they can be held accountable for any issues.”
However, SFI plans to issue a warning today that the RASTP five-point harness, with 3” belts, a sternum strap, and shoulder pads, sold on Amazon (see here) had counterfeit SFI labels.
“The labels were determined to be counterfeit,” Hurst said. “Labeling is important to determine who manufactured the harness and where they could be contacted in case of a safety issue.”
SFI reached out to the manufacturer through Amazon this morning, according to Hurst.
“We asked that they identify the source of these belts or cease and desist selling them,” said Hurst. “We received a simple reply — ‘Sorry, we will cease and desist.’”
Counterfeit items are flooding U.S. ports. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents intercept them on a daily basis. During the 2020 fiscal year, U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents seized more than 26,500 shipments containing counterfeit goods, estimated at a value of $1.3 billion.
“Trade in counterfeit and pirated goods threatens America’s innovation economy, the competitiveness of business, and, in some cases, national security and the health and safety of consumers,” Jaime Ruiz, spokesperson for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, said today.
Hurst said the RASTP product was sourced in China. Because RASTP will cease and desist, it may be never known where the counterfeit belts were manufactured and by whom.
The Outside Groove Director of Photography has written hundreds of stories since the website’s inception. This year marks his 54th year of covering auto racing. Adaskaveg got his start working for track photographer Lloyd Burnham at Connecticut’s Stafford Motor Speedway in 1970. Since then, he’s been a columnist, writer, and photographer, in racing and in mainstream media, for several outlets, including the Journal Inquirer, Boston Herald, Stock Car Racing, and Speedway Illustrated. Among Adaskaveg’s many awards are the 1992 Eastern Motorsport Press Association (EMPA) Ace Lane Photographer of the Year and the 2019 National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA) George Cunningham Writer of the Year.
