Prepared For The Worst—Inside The TS Motorsports Cockpit In Sarasota
If you were watching last Saturday’s P1 Offshore livestream of the 450R Factory Stock race during the Sarasota Powerboat Grand Prix, you witnessed advanced cockpit-safety technology saving the TS Motorsports duo of driver Taylor Scism and throttleman John Tomlinson from possibly significant injuries. Scism and Tomlinson were chasing the Montlick Injury Attorneys team of driver Logan Adan and throttleman Giovanni Carpitella—the eventual winner of the contest in Southwest Florida—when their 39-foot canopied MTI raceboat launched awkwardly in the rough Gulf of Mexico waters. Their landing, as you can see from the slideshow below, was savagely violent.
Advance cockpit-safety technology prevented what could have been serious injuries to the TS Motorsports team of Taylor Scism and John Tomlinson last Saturday during an incident at the 40th annual Sarasota Powerboat Grand Prix. All photos courtesy Taylor Scism/MTI
Yet they emerged unscathed. “You’re normally sore after a rough race like that,” Scism said. “But we were no more sore than usual after that incident.
“What you can’t see in the video is that we submerged one our engines,” she added. “That’s what stopped us from continuing.”
Scism gives 100 percent of the credit to the catamaran’s monocoque cockpit, which is constructed with “crush zones,” starting with its seats designed by Rick Hendricks Motorsports of NASCAR fame.
“The stiff foam for the seats was custom-poured for each us—no one else can fit in those seats but us,” she said. “If Johnny or I have a piece of gum in our pockets, we can’t fit into them. They also have a built-in piece for head-support that keeps our heads from moving but does not restrict our vision.
“We wear seven-point restraints and HANS devices that go over them,” she continued. “Mine has a finger-trigger you push when you need to release everything. You need to be able to push a release, instead of having to pull on one, in case your hands are wet and slippery. We went through a lot of research and design to create that system. And we also have strap cutters in the event we need them mounted on the structure ahead of us.”
Broken into a sequence, the violence of the TS Motorsports incident is undeniable.
Last year, the 39-footer was not equipped with the same extensive head-and-neck support configuration. During the 2023 Race World Offshore World Championship in Key West, Fla., Scism and Tomlinson spun out in one race and Scism’s helmeted head slammed into the cockpit. She was knocked unconscious and exited the raceboat with a mild concussion.
“I am very, very grateful for the system we have now,” she said.
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