Following several tragic deaths and injuries to racing drivers recently, today’s invention attempts to provide a measure of added protection for the heads of drivers of open cockpit racing cars.
When any piece of airborne debris breaks one of a number of infrared beams which form a ‘cage’ around the cockpit area, the engine airduct is fired forward to encase the driver’s head and the rollbar.
The duct is propelled by a strong spring to cover the cockit in a few milliseconds. It moves on a pair of rails and when in the cover position, still allows the driver some forward field of view.
A driver might even be able to retract the hood, once the danger of impact had passed.
According to this cutaway, http://media.gizmodo.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/SauberF1large.jpg the above would see the driver punch through the fuel tank.
This might actually provide effective viscous damping of his motion, if the tank could be made to evacuate through a presure release valve into a different, sealed space.