This might appear legit from afar but take a closer look: it’s certainly an example of fake SFI labels. This example, however, seems like a racer created it.
When a set of belts from a dirt late model came in for a rebuild at Hooker Harness, the company’s Scott McPhillips noticed something didn’t look right. Someone glued a fake SFI label over the original one on the left side of the harness.
“I can only assume that it was on the left side because it would be in plain sight of safety inspectors,” McPhillips said. “I don’t know if it was a belt that came with a car or was part of a harness that was resold as used. It’s the first time I saw a high-quality SFI label that was glued over an expired label, not one altered with a Sharpie or sewn on by someone.”
The label’s smooth, satin texture caught McPhillips’ eye. It was not like the coarser texture material of the legitimate SFI labels that companies sew into belts’ webbing. SFI labels last for two years. Many manufacturers offer to rebuild the harness after their expiration. The fake label bought the perpetrator five years without a rebuild.
“Whoever made this label, they spent some time doing it,” McPhillips said. “It was an intentional copy made on a computer to look legitimate and skirt the rules. Only one component out of the five on this harness had the counterfeit label — the one most looked at. Putting a label that appears new on an old harness is potentially a very dangerous thing to do. Our biggest fear is that there are more harnesses with this label on them.”
The performance of belts deteriorates over time due to a variety of factors, most of which are self-inflicted by racers.
“Dirt car owners are notorious for pressure washing,” McPhillips said. “Not only can that damage webbing, but the retained water also keeps the hardware moist, which accelerates corrosion. We’ve also seen harnesses with weld spatter damage that was subsequently wrapped in duct tape. People have bleached them, cut them and spilled acid on them.”
McPhillips said it costs just $85 for Hooker Harness to rebuild a harness approaching its two-year life maximum. It’ll not only improve your safety, but also save you the effort from creating fake SFI labels.
“That’s a season’s worth of beer can recycling,” McPhillips said of the cost. “We’re not doing this to make money. It’s all about safety. At the end of the night, you want to come home and live to race another day.”
Mike Adaskaveg 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.
