A Proper Primer on Personal Protection

Nicer racing suits feature a curved arm. Why? Because your arm essentially spends all of its time in this position while seated and gripping the steering wheel. By making the arm curved, it means the natural driving position has the suit “at rest”, as opposed to a perfectly straight arm construction which would result in bunching when the driver is in the neutral position.

If you happen to have a traditional suit (like a business suit) or a jacket with straight arms, go put it on, and then sit in your car and grab the steering wheel. Notice where it bunches and fits funny? A racing suit won’t do that, which is more comfortable, which means you focus on driving and not on the annoying bunching of your suit. Focusing on driving is good. Focusing on other things is bad.

Why am I sitting in a seat? Because that’s what I’ll be doing in an actual race car. Why am I holding my arms up? Because that’s what I’ll be doing in an actual race car. The suit should be comfortable in its most natural position and throughout the range of motion.

If you put it on and it’s too tight overall immediately, it’s too small. If you put it on and it’s a giant sack hanging off you everywhere, it might be too big. But, when you sit down, things move and bunch up and change. What you thought was a ton of space in the crotch of the suit might suddenly be uncomfortable. What you thought was ample room in the neck might suddenly be choking you. It’s important to try a suit like this, and important to fasten all velcro and zips and other things, just like you would in a real car.

I really, really wanted to love the Sabelt Diamond TS-7. It felt wonderful in my hand. It felt wonderful when I put it on. I liked the aggressive Alpinestars styling but didn’t care for the boot cut legs. I tried several different sizes of the Diamond and I couldn’t make any of them feel comfortable in the racing seat. That was a good thing, for my wallet, at least.

Here’s an example of how the suit might look too big when you first put it on, but then fits just right when you sit down. You can see here it looks like the arms and legs are a little long, but, once seated, they end up being just the right length. I hemmed and hawed between two sizes of the Sabelt Challenge TS-3 until I finally settled on a size 56, which is actually quite large compared to what Sabelt’s measurements suggested. But, that’s why I visited a showroom. Because they had several sizes in stock of everything for me to try on.