Hey man, are you sure something snapped? I bet the bolt that holds the shaft to the steering rack came out and the shaft disconnected. Check out the steering rack bushing installation instructions on Maximum Motorsports website for pics of the bolt I am talking about.
As for the airbags, just disconnect your battery. Disconnect the negative cable first then the postitive and wait like 2 minutes. I think I read that in a haynes manual actually but that's how 'disable' them. I've had some bad experiences with airbags too. They never deploy when they should and always deploy when it's unnecessary, so it seems.
So did the bar break inside the cab? Down by your feet? Or did it break on the outside of the car (through firewall side)? I've never heard of such a thing.
You're lucky My race car steering shaft snapped when I was coming out of a corner at WOT. The car turn to the right and slammed into the rear tire of another car. It hurt like hell and broke the other guy's axle tube. Did some small body damage to mine. That was it.