Site:  RacingDirect.com

Product:  Bell Sentinel Rib Protector Vest (size:  S-M)

Price:  $31.95 (free shipping included)

I felt that this was a necessary purchase on a couple of different levels.  One was that I’m a pretty short guy and I tend to move around a lot in a go-karting seat.  Throughout the duration of a race I found that my ribs would get sore from slamming side to side in the seat and my times would go down to reflect that.  I also got it for impact protection and improving my overall safety in the kart.  I did plenty of research on the vest and found at the current time RacingDirect.com had the best price on the Internet beating out eBay by a long shot.  (For a review on my experience with RacingDirect.com please see my review post.)  Once I received the Bell Sentinel Rib Protector I noticed that the side protection at first to be too thin for my expectations.  However once in the kart I found it good enough to do the job.  There wasn’t too much protection to where I lost the feeling for the kart but enough there to help me last longer in stints.  One other factor that I liked about this vest is that there’s also padding that stretches down the spine of your back.  I think that many sites don’t cover this feature enough and found that siting in the kart seat was much more comfortable.  Adjustments to the vest are easily made with the two Velcro straps.  I also like that the vest didn’t hike-up as I was driving but rather it stayed in the position from where I put it on.  I’ve experienced other vests that do hike-up and you lose some of the protection and gain a lot of irritability, but the Bell Sentinel vest did not do that.  There is also plenty of ventilation on the vest so excessive sweating isn’t a factor with the added layer.  With the added protection and excellent fitment, I would say for any endurance kart racer that this is a must have for your arsenal.

Product Performance:  9/10