Supporting safety
HANS: 'Overnight success story' is a 25-year evolution in driver protection
One of the most important safety advances in the history of racing is manufactured in a nondescript, one-story brick building on the same street as a ceramics shop, a company that creates stained glass and a pet mortuary.
Downing wears the HANS device during this year's Rolex 24.
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The challenge for us is to get the Saturday night circle track drivers to understand that if you stop fast enough at 30 miles an hour, you can die.
”
-- JIM DOWNING
But for the past decade, Downing has been better known as the principal driving force behind HANS -- the acronym for the "head and neck support" system -- that he and brother-in-law Dr. Bob Hubbard invented almost 25 years ago.
"It was one of these overnight success stories," Downing says with a wry smile.
There was a time early on when success seemed impossible at best. Crash test results showed the product worked well, but Downing had a hard time convincing other drivers to try it. In the first 10 years, Downing estimated he sold no more than 250 HANS devices.
"If we sold one a month, it would be amazing," Downing said. "Frankly, it got to be pretty discouraging. I was beginning to think we were never going to get this thing off the ground. I was a professional road racer and the Mazda factory paid my bills for 20 years. We weren't making a living off HANS devices, I can tell you that."
But Dale Earnhardt's fatal accident at the 2001 Daytona 500 was about to change everything.
Out of tragedy
Racing safety rarely progresses at a slow and steady pace. Sadly, major leaps forward are nearly always the result of calamitous circumstances. Mandatory fuel cells were the direct response to fires that killed Fireball Roberts, Eddie Sachs and Dave MacDonald in 1964. NASCAR mandated window netting after Richard Petty's horrifying rollover crash down the frontstretch at Darlington in 1970.
And when four NASCAR drivers were killed within an eight-month span, including Earnhardt, suddenly everybody in the garage area was knocking down the doors to get one of Downing's devices.
"When that string of deaths started in NASCAR with Adam Petty and Kenny Irwin, and then Tony Roper and then Earnhardt, we were ready with a device that would work, that was something the drivers were willing to try, so the push got going," Downing said. "I took orders for 250 in the first week after Earnhardt was killed. It was a very hectic start to a very hectic year. I had like one on the shelf."
That wasn't the case when Downing came to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 2000 with the intention of introducing the HANS to the drivers participating in the Chevrolet test session for the upcoming Brickyard 400. The response at the time was lukewarm at best, although one driver in particular was adamant in his disinterest.
"I have to say most of the drivers were willing to at least get in the car and put it on," Downing said. "They were polite. We had a funny incident there. At one point, we went into the NASCAR trailer. Mike Helton was in there and we were going to talk about it. It was going to be a discussion, no big deal.
"For some reason, Earnhardt came in. He sat down with a big grin on his face and we were ushered out right away. He was not interested in it. He wasn't going to talk about it. He wasn't going to spend any time. Really, he was the only driver that I didn't get around to.
"Some of them did brush us off, but by and large, most of them were pretty good. It didn't mean they accepted it and wanted one, but it was a test day and there was a lot of down time. There wasn't the pressure of a race where people have their race face on."
Downing understands why drivers are sometimes resistant to change. Even without Earnhardt's death and the resulting NASCAR mandate for head and neck restraints, he believes most drivers would have voluntarily made the move.
"Certainly we would have been accepted if Earnhardt hadn't been killed," Downing said. "But that accelerated it by five or six years, maybe even 10."
At his shop in Atlanta, Jim Downing holds up the original HANS device, circa 1986,
still attached to a helmet.
still attached to a helmet.
Dressed in a denim shirt, sweater and jeans, Downing looks like he'd be comfortable in the role of a college professor. And with a degree in industrial management from Georgia Tech, the tall, angular 69-year-old with thinning hair and rounded glasses certainly has the engineering chops to back it up.
Downing caught the racing bug early, entering soap box derbies when he was 11. He raced smaller sports cars until he could get his SCCA license at 21, at which time he rebuilt a Elva Courier and entered it at Daytona. After 11 years of amateur racing, Downing went pro with factory backing from Mazda.
During that time, Hubbard -- a mechanical engineer with a doctorate in biomechanics -- assisted on Downing's pit crew, and invariably the two would talk about safety issues, since Hubbard did crash test studies at General Motors involving the head and neck.
The conversations became more substantial when Downing escaped serious injury in a hard crash at Mosport in 1980. A year later, his good friend Patrick Jacquemart died in an accident at Mid-Ohio.
"Patrick was killed because of a basilar skull fracture," Downing said. "It was one of those things where there's not a mark on your body. He went into a bank at the end of a long straightaway at Mid-Ohio and snapped his head. His body was restrained and his head wasn't. Very few people escape dying from that type of wreck."
Downing wondered if there might be a piece of equipment designed to keep the head and neck protected in the event of a high-velocity accident, and Hubbard had an idea for what would become the original HANS.
"I asked the question of how can we be safer, and he answered it," Downing said. "He came up with the idea of this funny-looking, big old collar. He came up with the idea, got a patent on it and we built them in my composite shop. We actually had the first working prototype -- that I was wearing -- in 1986."
Behind Downing's office, he has his "archive room," where metal shelves are stacked with a visual history of the HANS device. There, among a number of successful and unsuccessful prototypes of all shapes and sizes, is device No. 1, still strapped to a unadorned white helmet.
Downing's work caught the attention of safety expert John Melvin, who took one of the first devices to his lab at Wayne State University in Michigan and gave the HANS the thumbs up after thorough testing. But the original HANS was big and bulky and drivers thought it limited their ability to move around in -- and out of -- the car.
But manufacturers were paying attention.
"The unfortunate death of Ayrton Senna in 1994 really influenced this quite a lot because it got Mercedes -- Daimler Benz -- interested," Downing said. "They started testing our device and discovered in their sled tests that it really did work. It worked on the first hit and the second and the third. Sometimes, it ain't over until it's really over."
In 1998, representatives from several manufacturers met with Downing and Hubbard.
"It's when we got together with Mercedes, Ford and Chevy and met at Chevrolet in Detroit and talked about this device," Downing said. "Mercedes stepped up because of the testing and funded us. They just had tested the big one and knew the concept worked but it wouldn't fit in a Formula 1 car. That was their interest.
"So we downsized it and downsized it, and massaged it and got it to where it would fit. The product today is a far cry from that product, but you put them side to side and you know where the parentage came from."
CART physician Dr. Terry Trammell began requiring drivers with previous neck injuries to wear HANS devices, and slowly more open-wheel drivers began to use it, particularly on ovals. But Downing still faced an uphill battle in NASCAR.
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We're so busy right now, I almost haven't got time to figure out about what else to do, other than just solve problems and work on new variations We talk about adding products. We have a world-class brand, with a good reputation.
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-- JIM DOWNING
There are still reminders of Downing's racing days in his expansive shop at the back of the building. The driver's compartment of a Mazda prototype sits amid a collection of vintage vehicles and race cars in the process of being constructed. In addition to the work on HANS, Downing still does manufacturing and bodywork, so it's a busy place, filled with the sounds of grinding metal and the smells of paint and fiberglass.
The carbon fiber pieces that make up the key elements of the HANS are molded off-site, but there is a room, perhaps no bigger than a master bedroom, where all the parts are hand assembled. There are two heavy-duty sewing stations to attach the tethers, and one worker is busy making sure the metal hardware is a perfect fit.
Since the Intimidator wasn't interested in Downing's newfangled device, HANS got a toehold in NASCAR thanks to the son of the King, Kyle Petty.
"He's a guy who thinks outside the box," Downing said. "Kyle doesn't have blinders on as much as some of the other drivers. He was never the hero driver as much as his dad was. He was still a thinker.
"Bill Elliott had tried it early on, even early on when he was Million Dollar Bill. I can't remember if it was the late '80s or early '90s, but that was a big one."
Another driver who wore the HANS early on would also eventually go on to perform a key role in NASCAR's safety initiatives.
"Brett Bodine was probably the first real regular to wear the HANS device," Downing said. "He realized it early on. He was an engineer and he was a smart guy."
Still, Downing estimates no more than five or six drivers were wearing a HANS device when the field took the green flag for the 2001 Daytona 500.
"We had guys who didn't want to know about it and fought it, tooth and nail," Downing said.
Tony Stewart's resistance to the HANS is legendary. Downing remembered how much of a battle Stewart put up when forced to wear one at the Daytona 24-hour race one February.
"When it became mandatory in Grand-Am, he didn't want to wear it there," Downing said. "It was required of everybody. I and my wife went down at the request of Grand-Am to make sure that even though they knew they had to wear it, we knew people would show up and not have it. We went down just to help out and we ended up working for three days solid in 30-degree weather, fitting HANS helmets with the parts and making sure everybody had it.
"We had to fight Tony down there. He had four of them at the time but he kept making excuses like, 'I don't have one that fits right.' We even flew some in on Saturday morning before the start of the 24-hour race. I got up early, went to the FedEx office and brought them over so he had every possible selection."
Finally, Jim France stepped in and gave Stewart an ultimatum.
"Jimmy -- to his credit -- said, 'Tony, if you're not going to wear this thing, go home. That's your choice,' " Downing said. "And he wore it. But it took Jim France to get it done. I could sit there and explain to him why they ought to do it, all day long, and he didn't give a damn what I had to say. But now he's a believer. He's had big wrecks. They all got religion, finally."
The religious metaphor went from figuratively to literally later that year in the All-Star Race at Charlotte.
"I remember when Jeff Gordon had that huge wreck at Charlotte, at the start of the all-star race," Downing said. "He wrecked on the first lap, and he got up and thanked God and he thanked HANS for saving his life. But you have to think those things affected other drivers. It was already mandatory then."
Trial and error
For Downing, the HANS device is a never-ending work in progress. That's why he has a small room with a testing bench and weights that allow him to check quality control on the current model, plus perform stress and load analysis on prototypes. That, and the feedback he gets from drivers has been the key reason why HANS continues to improve.
"I've got personal experience. I'm still racing," Downing said. "I talk to the drivers when I'm out there and hear the complaints. One of the bigger complaints -- and one of the biggest changes we're able to make -- is a sliding tether.
That means strapping on the helmet and figuring out what will -- and won't -- work.
"I do most of the product changes," Downing said. "I tried sliding tethers. I make myself the test dummy, as I have been since Day 1. The first sliding tether didn't work very well. It had a little groove for the tether and it worked, but when you got on the track, every time you'd turn your head, it would catch before it continued to turn. It wasn't a big deal, but it was irritating.
"So we finally got that right, and it was fairly simple to get it right."
And an unexpected bonus came when the new tether was checked on the sled test machine.
"It turns out that the sliding tether is probably even a little bit safer than the fixed tether," Downing said. "People like John Melvin have agreed with us that it actually might take some of the jerk out of a rotational wreck.You get hurt because of rotation and tearing. The slide tether helps reduce that probability a little bit."
The current configuration of the HANS device is a "one size fits most." However, some drivers -- because of their size, neck length and stature -- need a little extra tailoring.
"We went up and [recently] fit Danica Patrick at Jefferson Speedway [northeast of Atlanta]," Downing said. "Danica's been bellyaching about her HANS. It doesn't work, it doesn't fit right. She would never spend time with us and tell us exactly what the problem is.
"So fortunately they were testing up there and asked us to come up and see. We went up and brought all our HANS and put one on there that no one had ever tried before. And it fit, and she seems to be happy."
When the HANS first became popular, unique molds were made for certain star drivers. But Downing says that's no longer economically feasible.
"In the early days, everybody wanted their own personal one," Downing said. "Danica wants one, too. OK, send me the $50,000 check. By the time you build the proper mold, and you train the people to build it at where we have the high-end ones built, and then you go through the SFI testing, the FIA testing -- if it passes the first time and you don't have to redesign it, change it, do it again -- it's big money to do this.
"We did one for Jeff Gordon and a couple of others. But as we developed a more universal model -- and several of those with different angles and different widths, we're able to fit anybody."
Evolution and expansion
Downing has a virtual monopoly in Sprint Cup. Only one driver that he's aware of in NASCAR's three major touring series -- Brendan Gaughan -- doesn't use HANS. But where he feels his company has the opportunity to make the biggest difference isn't under the bright lights of the high-banked superspeedways, but in the dimly lit bullrings of local tracks.
"The challenge for us is to get the Saturday night circle track drivers to understand that if you stop fast enough at 30 miles an hour, you can die," Downing said. "The dirt tracks, they can't afford to put up SAFER walls, but they can buy better seats, they can buy better belts, they can buy a HANS device and that's the challenge for us now."
The message is working, because over 120,000 HANS devices have been sold by almost 200 dealers in North America and Europe. And most of those were by show and tell. The device retails for $600-$1,000, depending on the model.
"What we've tried to do is sign up dealers who will go to these small tracks on Thursday, Friday, Saturday night, with a little trailer," Downing said. "The guys out in the field typically won't buy one unless they can touch it, feel it, put one on and sit in their car. It hasn't become a commodity yet where you buy it from one of the big distributors."
And Downing never stops thinking about ways to improve HANS. On his desk is the most recent prototype, with a lower and more rounded neck brace. It's a result of feedback from Funny Car drag racers who need to be able to exit their cars through a small opening in the roof.
"We're so busy right now, I almost haven't got time to figure out about what else to do, other than just solve problems and work on new variations," Downing said. "We talk about adding products. We have a world-class brand, with a good reputation. In Europe, in Japan, people know what a HANS device is. I probably should hire some professional brand manager who knows more about it than I ever will. Right now, we're just working away."
Downing has raced for more than four decades and has acquired trophies of every shape and size. But for him, finding a way for drivers to survive potentially fatal accidents is worth more than any checkered flag.
"I'm thrilled that I'm known now as the HANS guy," Downing said. "I got into racing because I like racing. I had some success and I enjoyed the success.
"But this is a much bigger deal. This is important for everybody in racing. Both Bob and I are thrilled that this happened to us. It's far more important than being a racer."
Trying to equate the safety features on today's modern Sprint Cup car with those of its predecessors is an impossibility. The cars in that first Strictly Stock race at Charlotte Speedway in 1949 were not even required to have roll bars or seat belts.
In many cases, cars were borrowed or rented, driven to the track, basic modifications made and raced. They were true stock cars, in every sense of the word. And in 20-20 hindsight, incredibly unsafe.
Supporting safety
One of the most important safety advances in the history of racing is manufactured in a nondescript, one-story brick building on the same street as a ceramics shop, a company that creates stained glass and a pet mortuary. Welcome to the home of the HANS device.More
In fact, the last Cup driver to lose appreciable time because of injuries from an accident was Dario Franchitti, who broke his ankle while driving in a Nationwide Series car at Talladega.
Safety advances in NASCAR have, with a few exceptions, come as the result of tragic consequences. Five-point safety harnesses, fuel cells, on-board fire extinguishers, purpose-built racing seats, soft wall technology and head and neck restraints were all solutions to dangers exposed by racing conditions.
The idea of relative safety as it pertains to racing remains a moving target. What seems "safe" at the time is almost always outdated when looked at from the standpoint of history. Steve Peterson, NASCAR's technical director before his death in 2008, said every era can be defined by the safety improvements made during that period.
"When you go back in the history of auto racing, that's happened," Peterson said. "In the '60s, with the roll cage. In the '50s, with the roll bars. In the '40s, it was the crash helmets."
And yet, the industry as a whole has traditionally been resistant to change.
"In the '50s, my dad made seat belts mandatory [at family-owned Chemung Speedrome], and drivers were protesting," Brett Bodine said. "They would not race. He made them all put a seat belt in and they said, 'We're not racing.' "
But that long-time mindset evaporated following the investigation into Dale Earnhardt's death at Daytona in 2001. NASCAR immediately began to take a proactive and aggressive stance on safety, opening a new research and development center near Charlotte Motor Speedway in 2002 with safety first and foremost in mind.
The current Cup chassis, introduced in 2007, is a perfect state-of-the-art marriage of form and function. Some of the safety improvements included moving the driver's seat closer to the center of the car, enlarging the cockpit area and adding crushable material in the doorframes.
So how has racing safety evolved? Here are some examples:
Helmets
The first helmets used by NASCAR drivers were of a design called a Cromwell, which basically looked like a hardhat attached over the ears and under the chin with a leather strap.
"Those early helmets were like wearing a flower pot on your head with leather straps," NASCAR Hall of Famer Ned Jarrett was quoted as saying. "At the time, we felt like it was the state-of-the-art helmet because that was about all you could get.
"Over the years, helmets were made of fiberglass that fit around your face and down the back of your neck for better protection and they were priced at $35."
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Basically controlling risk during crashes is an energy-management problem. Our knowledge and understanding of energy management today is a lot better than it was in 1998. And in 1998, it was a lot better than it was in 1988.
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-- DEAN SICKING
When he moved from modifieds to the Cup circuit in the early '80s, Geoff Bodine brought along his full-face helmet. But NASCAR didn't make a full-face helmet mandatory until Earnhardt was killed.
An accident on pit road which resulted in severe head injuries to a crewman in the final race of the 2001 season forced NASCAR to require helmets for over-the-wall crew members beginning in 2002.
Seat belts
The first U.S. patent for a safety belt was issued in 1885, but they were considered optional items by manufacturers until 1963, when front seat lap belts were mandated. Most drivers in that era used rope or aircraft harnesses to hold themselves in place while racing.
By the early 1960s, shoulder straps were added but many drivers were resistant to the change, particularly since the threat of fire was a constant issue. The five-point harness, which includes a strap between the legs, is designed to keep the driver from "submarining," or sliding out underneath the belts in the event of a head-on collision.
After Earnhardt was killed while wearing a five-point harness, many drivers switched to a six-point harness, in which belts are wrapped around the legs. All the belts are connected to a single latch that can be released quickly to allow for a quick exit from the cockpit.
Roll cages
It wasn't until 1952 that NASCAR's rule book required a roll bar that went from the doorpost to the roof of the car to keep the roof from caving in, in the event of a rollover crash. Eventually that led to teams building roll cages inside the factory-ordered vehicles.
Starting in 1960, John Holman and Ralph Moody of the Ford factory team began designing roll cages and then adding the bodywork around the completed frame, which remains the standard today. During that decade, additional bars were added to the frame and doors.
With the advent of the current chassis design, NASCAR officials require each to be certified for competition -- and in the event of an accident, it must be re-certified before getting the go-ahead to be used again. That demanded an advanced chassis certification and inspection process, one that allows NASCAR to identify and keep records on each unique chassis, provide accurate measurements to within one-ten-thousandths of an inch and improve tolerances.
Fuel cells
Until 1964, most teams used a welded metal fuel tank. But those would rupture in hard crashes, and leak if the car got upside down. The inherent dangers of fuel tanks were brought to the forefront during the 1964 World 600, when Fireball Roberts was severely burned when his car flipped and caught fire.
The solution was to use a fuel cell, reinforced with a rubber bladder and foam. In the event of an accident, the fuel cell is designed to limit the potential for ignition of the fuel and to keep it from leaking.
Fire retardant uniforms
Drivers wore little more than jeans and a T-shirt in NASCAR's early days, although fire retardant solutions were sometimes added to the material in an effort to give the driver time to escape a burning vehicle. However, Roberts' accident -- and the deaths of Eddie Sachs and Dave MacDonald at Indianapolis that May -- resulted in the development of uniforms that would better protect drivers in the event of fire.
DuPont began development of a fire-retardant material called Nomex in the early '60s and by 1966, drivers like Walt Hansgen, Masten Gregory, Marvin Panch and Bob Tullius were testing experimental Nomex uniforms. Today, drivers wear several layers of fire-retardant clothing, including underwear and gloves made from Nomex, allowing them to withstand flames until safety crews can arrive on the scene.
Onboard fire extinguishers
As a result of the Roberts accident, NASCAR began requiring fire extinguishers to be carried in the cockpit of all cars. In the five decades since that accident, fire-fighting improvements have been continuously added.
In 2003, NASCAR required an additional fire-extinguishing cylinder solely dedicated to the fuel cell area in all three major touring series, mounted in the cockpit and automatically activated by heat.
Advances in tires
Just like the cars, the tires used in NASCAR's early years were production models, usually truck tires that could better withstand the high speeds and cornering on dirt tracks. But as more races were run on asphalt superspeedways, tire manufacturers realized major improvements needed to be made.
After Billy Wade was killed during a tire test at Daytona in 1964, Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. began developing a safety liner, so that in the event of a blowout at speed, the inner liner remains inflated.
Window netting
The idea of a window net keeping the driver secure inside the cockpit was first suggested after two-time champion Joe Weatherly died after striking his head on a guard rail during a race at Riverside in 1964. But NASCAR didn't mandate window nets for another seven years.
It wasn't until Richard Petty's grinding rollover crash during the 1970 Rebel 400 at Darlington that window nets became mandatory instead of optional. During that accident, Petty's helmet and left arm were left danging out of the car. He struck his helmet on the pavement several times and suffered a serious shoulder injury.
Racing seats
Before NASCAR's modern era, most drivers relied on a modified passenger car bench seat with the back removed. Modified single seats began to be used in the 1970s, with racing seats being introduced by the 1980s. Following a number of accidents involving serious head injuries, padded headrests were made mandatory.
Former driver Randy LaJoie is a leading advocate for racing seat technology. His company, The Joie of Seating, is any industry leader. And he estimates that less than 30 percent of the cars racing in the United States meet minimum safety requirements.
"When they come through, I want to stand there when they get inspected," he said. "I want to hand them a sheet that I inspected their car and I'll give them suggestions.
"If they've got good stuff, they've got good stuff. But at the end of the day, I want to get with the track guys and tell them, 'Hey, five guys went through and their seats only have three bolts in them.' And pass that along to the chassis builders to make these cars safer."
LaJoie said many drivers just aren't that knowledgeable about safety.
"The biggest part is that some of them just don't know what can happen to them," LaJoie said. "It's their own decision. At the end of the day, it's that individual's decision to make themselves safe."
Softwall technology
Concerned with the rising number of high-impact crashes resulting in driver injuries, then-Indianapolis Motor Speedway president Tony George began looking for a solution. The first application, a Polyethylene Energy Dissipating System -- or PEDS -- was designed by retired General Motors engineer John Pierce and placed on an interior wall near the entrance to pit road in 1998.
It received its first real test when Arie Luyendyk struck it at a high rate of speed during the International Race of Champions event later that season. It kept the driver from suffering serious injuries, but the barrier came apart under the stress of the crash, littering the track with pieces of plastic, creating a safety hazard for the other cars and requiring an extensive cleanup.
So George turned to Midwest Roadside Safety Facility director Dr. Dean Sicking, a civil engineer. Sicking helped redesign the PEDS barrier and began work on his own design, putting crushable foam insulation behind a series of square steel tubes. By 2000, NASCAR had joined in the development of the project. And the first SAFER barriers were ready for installation at the Speedway in time for the 2002 Indianapolis 500.
The benefits were immediate, as no drivers suffered significant injuries as a result of contact with the SAFER barrier. NASCAR officials then went to Lincoln, Neb., for a series of tests using heavier stock cars, and came away impressed. Within the next two years, nearly every track on the Cup schedule would have SAFER barriers at key locations.
"Every decade, there's a significant improvement in the level of understanding of energy management," Sicking said. "Basically controlling risk during crashes is an energy-management problem. Our knowledge and understanding of energy management today is a lot better than it was in 1998. And in 1998, it was a lot better than it was in 1988.
"It takes about eight to 10 years to get a significant improvement in technology. The SAFER barrier really helped us a lot in our program, in particular, in the analysis procedure we use to design barriers. It was a tremendous analysis problem to be able to design the SAFER barrier for impacts at the speeds and angles we were looking at in NASCAR. And that helped us learn a lot about doing analysis that we haven't been able to do in the past, in designing other barriers."
Since the SAFER barriers have been in place, Sicking said there has not been a fatality resulting from an incident with an outer wall barrier in any of NASCAR's three major series.
"We think the magnitude of the safety problem associated with outer wall barriers has been dramatically reduced," Sicking said. "Up until 2001 or 2002, the highest risk for a driver was striking the outer wall barrier at a high angle at high speed. That's no longer true."
And Sicking applauds the sanctioning body for taking safety seriously.
"NASCAR's doing the right thing," he said "They focused on the outer barrier because that was their biggest problem. It's now no longer their biggest problem, so they're studying the complete safety of their tracks to make sure they are focusing energy, resources and attention on solving the biggest safety problem, and car-to-car is certainly one of those. And that's with the [new car]."
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