Introduction
Safety Devices were commissioned to design and install a custom roll cage for the Škoda Octavia vRS as it geared up for an ambitious land speed record attempt.
Details
The roll cage had to meet the stringent regulations of the Southern California Timing Association (SCTA), the governing body operating the Bonneville Salt Flats facility, known as Bonneville Speedway. Bonneville, a densely packed salt pan in northwest Utah, USA, is renowned for land speed records.
Every aspect of the roll cage’s design was tailored to SCTA regulations, including material gauge, plate sizes, and thickness. Aeron Lloyd, Chief Engineer at Safety Devices, commented: “I believe this is the most comprehensive roll cage we have manufactured in the past few years. The thought of rolling and digging in on a salt surface at 220+ mph is pretty frightening. Some of the accidents seen on the Bonneville Salt Flats are unbelievable.” With this in mind, the roll cage (known as a safety cell in Bonneville circles) was designed to be fully welded to the shell and includes practically every available extra: front turret triangulation, windscreen reinforcement bars, cross door bars, sill bars, tunnel reinforcement, upper and lower seat mountings, roof cross bracing, upper, lower, and mid backstays, main hoop cross diagonal bracing, tunnel brace, harness bar, backstay cross diagonal bracing, and rear turret brace. The roll cage also served as a mounting point for two 10kg fire extinguishers, and Safety Devices additionally manufactured a rear fire wall to secure the fuel cell.
On Friday, 19 August 2011, at 07:45am, a Škoda Octavia vRS officially became the world’s fastest 2.0-litre supercharged production car when the 600 bhp salt spec racer, built to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the iconic vRS performance flagship badge, registered an SCTA-sanctioned speed of 227.070 mph on Utah’s legendary Bonneville Salt Flats.
Further Information
You can follow the video highlights of the event over on EVO YouTube channel
Further information on Safety Devices’ bespoke capabilities can be found in our Motorsport sector.
