Thought about this today while cleaning my glasses.

In almost every video you guys post, your visors are always flipped up. For people that wear contacts (or anyone I guess) has this ever been a problem with dirt getting in your eyes? When I wear my contacts, if I get something in my eye, it usually disables me until I can either wash it out or clean my contact after removing it.

For glasses. Anyone ever have problems with them sliding down your nose or fogging up? When I played football, I'd wear a strap, but with my new glasses not having nosepads I doubt a strap would help from holding them in place very much.

Is debris a problem or am I just worrying?

 

this kinda worried me too. im totally disabled when anything gets in my eye, or for whatever reason my hard contacts are really irritating me. but it honestly never happened. i try to put my visor down as much as possible, but if i didnt already close it before the start of the race/session, closing it honestly isnt on the top of my mind so it might be a lap or two until i do. i ride my motorcycle a lot too. i think i had to deal with it once on the bike. but that was it. so its rarely ever an issue im not worried about.

then again, maybe its cuz i got more than average (even for an asian) squinty eyes...

oh yeah, when i wore my oakley a-wires under my helmet, i never had an issue of fogging up. sometimes ive had my helmet visor fog up, but clears away when air is moving, just crack it open if needed.


Modified by Tyson at 2:34 PM 11/19/2004

 

ICSCC requires two layers of eye protection. One is the windshield, and the other is your helmet visor or sunglasses. Our corner workers are pretty good about giving you the "salute" on the warm-up lap to lower your visors, even though you're wearing sun glasses.

John -- who's been hit in the face by debris at 100 mph, and highly recommends lowering your visor.

 

i wear contacts, and on bright sunny days i wear sun glasses inside the helmet. sometimes if flip the visor fully closed, sometimes a little up so it doesn't fog up. fog treatments work well, i just haven't bothered. i've never found debris to be any problems. when necessary, i flip the visor close quickly.

 

Prior to this year, when I autocrossed, I had visor up, sunglasses on. Sunglasses never fogged up. Unfortunately, they did end up snapping from being jammed in my helmet, and I decided that one ruined pair of $90 Oakleys was enough, so I bought a tinted visor for this season. It never fogged up, but I prefer having the visor open for autocross. Unfortunately my eyes are extremely light sensitive, so i had to compromise. Never had problems with debris, but obviously that would be different if I was road racing/HPDEing, not autocrossing.

I did have my clear visor fog up a few times doing indoor karting. I didn't like having the visor down but the workers said it is mandatory, which I guess makes sense since I did get hit by the occasional tire marble or whatever.

 

After taking marbles (rather sizeable ones) in the temple twice, earlier this year, I try to remember to put my face shield down, but when it's stinking hot out, it's really hard to remember to.

 

Go get yourself a Parker Pumper with a ice box... keep your head nice and Cool!

 

The only time that I forgot to put it down on an out lap this past season, I got a critter in my eye. That was a tough race, driving and blinking and crying...

I wear glasses and a full-face helmet and have had much better luck since I went to a Nomex helmet skirt rather than a balaclava. Way less fogging, fewer problems with the earpieces in the wrong place, and probably better protection to boot.

K

 

I wear contacts. With the visor folded up I have had them move out of position and have lost one completely. I now always drive with the visor down, problem solved, at least so far.

 

I also wear contacts and always have my visor all the way down or a slight crack. I have the same problem even a little bit of wind makes my contacts go haywire and I'm totally blind without some kind of prescription lens.

I tried the open face helmet with sunglasses, but I hated it on hot days where my sunglasses would slide down my nose. Being Asian we don't have great noses to hold up glasses or sunglasses

 

i too am asian and wear contacts. i've never had a problem with debris but i usually wear oakley square wires. my helmet is snug enough that it usually holds my sunglasses to my head. i'm not sure i've ever done a hot lap hpde'ing with the visor down as i dont like it that much but i can't recall ever having a problem.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by krshultz &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I wear contacts. With the visor folded up I have had them move out of position and have lost one completely. I now always drive with the visor down, problem solved, at least so far.</TD></TR></TABLE>

I too wear contacts. The last time I drove a car with the visor up, I had a contact "float" on me going up the esses at VIR driving MaddMatt's car at 100+ with him riding; I nearly balled the damn thing up because I couldn't see where the hell I was going.

I am not sure who was more scared, me or Matt, but it sucked, and the damn visor stays down now!

 

Lasik == good!

I wore glasses and had them fog up (even with anti-fog) really bad during a wet, cold race... I had lasik done and it was one of the best investments I've ever made. Not just for racing but for everything.

 

I wear glasses when I do HPDE events with the visor on my helmet open and even then I never have a problem.

Never even tried contacts, I dont really want to touch my eyeball.

 

I wear glasses when I race.. I submerge the lenses in fog X b4 a race and it really kicks ***!

I use the sheild down but not all the way locked closed.

 

I wear glasses under my helmet w/ a tinted visor on sunny days. I have contacts, but I don't want to take the chance of something happening to them on track. I always go w/ my face shield down (usually just for sun protection if nothing else) and I haven't had any fogging problems. I would fog up my facemask occasionally in winter on my motorcycle, but when you just crack the mask open about 1/4" and it will clear. If your helmet fits right, your glasses shouldn't go anywhere once you put them on under the helmet. Mine don't budge at all.

 

I knew you had it all along, Bowie....

I wear contacts, visor flipped up, usually wear some Ray Bans. No problems.

 

Scott, I hear you on the Lasik...I just worry that something will go wrong. Contacts I can take out. When they start cutting things, that's a lot more permanent.

Not to take us too far off topic but I'm curious. Have you had any of the alleged side effects I've heard about? Things like star patterns when looking at bright lights, worsening vision post surgery, having to have it redone...and so on?

Man..I've been wearing these things so long I don't know what it'd be like to go without. I imagine it would be pretty sweet.

 

cutting the eyes = bad

no corrective lenses here (thank god)... but after getting poped a few times in the face (once was 'real' close to my eye) (tire worm off of the inside of the drivers mirror at a hight rate of speed)... I 'try' to keep my visor down.

 

I usually do HPDE with my visor up and have no problems. But the one thing that worries me is when you go off in the dirt, or when someone ahead of you goes off in the dirt and you drive through that cloud, then it can get all over your eyes.

If someone else goes off it's easy to reach up and flip the visor dow, but if you go off, you're going to be too busy worrying about other things and keeping your hands on the wheels. It just gets too hot with the visor down for me.
One problem I've had is sweat dripping on my forehead and burning my eyes.

 

I have a tinted visor on my full face except when running enduros that I might do night driver where I switch to clear. I still tend to wear sunglasses with the visor up to reduce the chance of fogging or run with the visor about 3/4 of the way down if it will stay in that position. My head perspires a lot in the helmet so a humid or wet day outside and I will fog a lowered and sealed helmet visor.

I used to wear prescription glasses for being near sighted (since 3rd grade) so that was when I got used to the tinted visor but oddly in my late 30s my eye sight became 20/20 but I expect it is just transitioning through good sight on the way to being the normal far sighted 40 or 50 something.

If it is a rainy day and you have fog trouble in your visor, roll up a small square pad of duct tape and put it on the bottom edge corner of your visor and then close the helmet and it will allow enough fresh air to relieve fogging usually. I drove a Russell School in formula cars in the rain for several days so the visor had to be down but fogging was a big issue. Oddly the other weird thing was that your arms (inside of elbows mostly) got really chilled when driving in the open cockpit as your suit sleeves got wet in the rain but were up high enough in the cockpit air stream that they got cooled in the wind.

My wife used to wear contacts racing and her visor up until she got a pebble or boulder in her eye, since then she wears her regular glasses.

 

Contacts, full face helmet w/o visor. I have yet to have any vision related problem. My SA2005 will probably have a visor though.

 

after taking a tire marbel off my cheek at 110 or so i tend to keep my visor closed or close to closed. if there is any sun out i wear a pair of walmart 10$ sunglasses and they work great. never have fallen off my nose cause of my helmet holding them on (snug fit).

 

About two months ago I was doing a Poker Run and was at a nice slow pace of 40 or so. I was wearing my contacts when something hit my eye. I ended up pulling that contact out and letting my friend drive. Still wearing my glasses since my eye hasn't fully healed from the scratch.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by krshultz &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Not to take us too far off topic but I'm curious. Have you had any of the alleged side effects I've heard about? Things like star patterns when looking at bright lights, worsening vision post surgery, having to have it redone...and so on?</TD></TR></TABLE>

Hey Karl... I haven't had any negative side effects at all.

I used to wear contacts but stopped wearing them because they got in the way of the 18-hour marathon coding sessions I have on a pretty regular basis. I wore glasses for years and, when I tried to get contacts again, I found that I'd developed an astigmatism that made the contacts really expensive. I was sick of glasses so I decided to do the lasik.

The surgery takes about 20-minutes and it's my understanding that they now have procedures that don't cut at all. After that, everything is blurry and you're starting to feel a little nervous. They suggest you just go home and try to rest. I fell asleep for a few hours and, when I woke up, I could freakin' see!! There was about a week where your eyes are a bit sensitive but after that, no problems at all.

I went from 20/200 vision to 20/15.