12 years ago we asked a local "welder" to instal a comprehensive multipoint rollcage in our Subaru Legacy.
Once fitted and painted the cage looked pretty good, good enough that not once has a scrutineer questioned its integrity. We have competed in Pro class Time Attack and at the highest levels of hillclimbing in the UK and across Europe. During a sprint at Cadwell Park a few years back we even rolled the car which really put the cage to the test, or did it?
The regulations for Pikes Peak International Hillclimb are incredibly thorough, as they should be considering the potential risks involved, in order to meet all the roll cage requirements we contacted Roelands Motorsport. Andy Roelands came highly recommended and is incredibly experienced, he has an extensive history of rollcage preparation in a huge range of cars including some international rally cars. Andy's brief was to simply add 3 additional tubes, these changes required the removal of a piece of the 12 year old cage and that is where it all went so badly wrong...
Unbeknown to us the material used in the cage was ERW
ERW stands for Electric Resistance Welded, and it's a type of steel tube made by welding the edges of a steel strip together
The programme for getting the Legacy ready for Pikes Peak is incredibly tight and after this bombshell we had to really think about the reality of getting the car ready, one thing we were sure about was that the car would not run up the most extreme hillclimb in the world with such a terrible rollcage. After some begging we managed to convince Andy to postpone his other jobs and take on the enormous task of removing the old "cage" and installing one of his ROPT510 MSA/FIA complaint rollcages with all the additional requirements to comply with Pikes Peak International Hillclimb regulations 2025.
More on the new cage to follow soon....
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