Racing helmet
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A racing helmet is a form of protective headgear worn by
racing car Auto racing (also known as car racing, motor racing, or automobile racing) is a motorsport involving the racing of automobiles for competition. Auto racing has existed since the invention of the automobile. Races of various sorts were organise ...
and
rally Rally or rallye may refer to: Gatherings * Demonstration (political), a political rally, a political demonstration of support or protest, march, or parade * Pep rally, an event held at a United States school or college sporting event Sport ...
drivers. Motor racing has long been known to be an exceptionally risky sport:Lippi, G., Salvagno, G. L., Franchini M., and Guidi G. C.; “Changes in technical regulations and drivers’ safety in top‐class motor sports”; in '' Journal of Sports Medicine'', 41(12) December 2007; pp. 922–925 sudden deceleration forces on the head can easily occur if a racing car loses control at the very high speeds of competitive motor racing or the rough terrain experienced in rallying. A risk more nearly unique to motor racing is the possibility of drastically severe burns from fuel igniting when the fuel lines or fuel tank of the vehicle are jolted sufficiently to dislodge or breach them in a situation in which the driver cannot soon enough escape from his car. This happened to world champion driver
Niki Lauda Andreas Nikolaus "Niki" Lauda (22 February 1949 – 20 May 2019) was an Austrian Formula One driver and aviation entrepreneur. He was a three-time Formula One World Drivers' Champion, winning in , and , and is the only driver in Formula ...
at the
1976 German Grand Prix The 1976 German Grand Prix (formally the XXXVIII Großer Preis von Deutschland) was a Formula One motor race held at the Nürburgring on 1 August 1976. It was the scene of reigning world champion Niki Lauda's near-fatal accident, and the last F ...
race at the
Nürburgring The is a 150,000 person capacity motorsports complex located in the town of Nürburg, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It features a Formula One, Grand Prix race track built in 1984, and a long "North loop" track, built in the 1920s, around t ...
in a crash from which he barely escaped alive. It is known that the percentage of racing accidents resulting in
hospital A hospital is a health care institution providing patient treatment with specialized health science and auxiliary healthcare staff and medical equipment. The best-known type of hospital is the general hospital, which typically has an emerge ...
isation in motor racing, at around 25 percent, is higher than any other major international sportNys, Jean-François; “Physical Activity, Sport and Health”; in Andreff, Wladimir and Szymański Stefan (editors); ''Handbook on the Economics of Sport''; p. 148 and that the average period in hospital is the longest. A recent Australian study also suggests motor racing may have the highest rate of actual injury among major sports.Dickson, Tracey J. and Gray, Tonia; ''Risk management in the outdoors :a whole of organisation approach for education, sport and recreation''; p. 98. However, a study conducted between 1996 and 2000 by Fuji Toranomon Orthopaedic Hospital in
Shizuoka Shizuoka can refer to: * Shizuoka Prefecture, a Japanese prefecture * Shizuoka (city), the capital city of Shizuoka Prefecture * Shizuoka Airport * Shizuoka Domain, the name from 1868 to 1871 for Sunpu Domain, a predecessor of Shizuoka Prefecture ...
suggests that only a small proportion of these injuries are actually to the head or surrounding areas.


History

Analogous to
gridiron football Gridiron football,"Gridiron football"
''Encyclopædia Britannica''. Ret ...
, cloth; Miele, Vincent J. and Bailes, Julian; “Head, Spine and Peripeheral Nerve Injuries in Sports and Dance: An Encyclopedic Perspective” in Bailes, Julian and Day, Arthur (editors); ''Neurological Sports Medicine: A Guide for Physicians and Athletic Trainers''; p. 188. or leather helmets with
goggles Goggles, or safety glasses, are forms of protective eyewear that usually enclose or protect the area surrounding the eye in order to prevent particulates, water or chemicals from striking the eyes. They are used in chemistry laboratories and ...
to protect drivers’ eyes from dust were used by many pre-
World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
racing driversSimpson, Donald; “Helmets in Surgical History”; in ''Australian and New Zealand Journal of Surgery'', Volume 66, Issue 5, pages 314–324, May 1996 and already in 1914 the Auto Cycle Union made helmets compulsory for drivers of its racing vehicles. However, these helmets did nothing to prevent massive head injuries or burns during the numerous crashes encountered even when races were moved onto private tracks. In the period following the war, concern about head injuries in motor racing continued to grow much faster than efforts to design safer helmets. Some racing drivers in the 1920s and 1930s were known to wear football or fire-fighting helmets as these offered better protection than standard racing headdresses of the time. Despite the fact that hard-shell helmets were used in motorcycle racing during the 1930s, it was not until the 1950s that a hard-shell helmet specifically designed for motor racing emerged, and extremely soon after the first metal helmets were developed,
Formula One Formula One (also known as Formula 1 or F1) is the highest class of international racing for open-wheel single-seater formula racing cars sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The World Drivers' Championship, ...
made helmets of this type compulsory for all drivers.Helmets
/ref>
NASCAR The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, LLC (NASCAR) is an American auto racing sanctioning and operating company that is best known for stock car racing. The privately owned company was founded by Bill France Sr. in 1948, and hi ...
, however, did not make full-face helmets compulsoryNASCAR safety
/ref> until after the death of Dale Earnhardt in 2001. Although helmets had been mandatory in other races beforehand, the new technology greatly improved safety and allowed the use of higher speeds.
Bell Sports Bell Sports is an American maker of bicycle and motorcycle helmets. The company is a subsidiary of Vista Outdoor, after BRG Sports –owner of Riddell football helmets– sold some of its brands (including Bell, Giro, C-Preme, and Blackburn) to ...
developed the first mass-produced auto racing helmet in 1954.Charters, David Anderson; ''The Chequered Past: Sports Car Racing and Rallying in Canada, 1951-1991'' p. 67. By the end of the 1950s, full-face crash helmets were regarded as essential equipment for drivers in all forms of motor racing, and the
Snell Memorial Foundation The Snell Memorial Foundation is a nonprofit organization created to provide a high quality standard of safety for helmets. Founded in 1957, the foundation is named after William "Pete" Snell, a popular sports car racer who died in 1956 of head ...
developed the first auto racing helmet standards in 1959. Since that time, the alternative standard to that of Snell has been that of the
Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile The Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA; en, International Automobile Federation) is an association established on 20 June 1904 to represent the interests of motoring organisations and motor car users. It is the governing body for ...
, whose standards are used in Grand Prix racing. The
Safety Helmet Council of America Safety is the state of being "safe", the condition of being protected from harm or other danger. Safety can also refer to the control of recognized hazards in order to achieve an acceptable level of risk. Meanings There are two slightly dif ...
also developed a race-car helmet standard in the 1970s, but currently only provides certification to the Department of Transportation which does not certify racing car helmets. Since racing helmets became general standard equipment, there have been many improvements made to their design to cope with the increases in power and speed of racing cars. The most recent of these has been the development of flexible “tethers” so that a head inside the helmet cannot snap forward or to the side during a wreck.


Construction

In most respects, auto racing helmets are not dissimilar to motorcycle helmets in construction, since they have similar requirements of protecting against extremely high-speed collisions. Modern racing helmets have an outer shell of
carbon fiber Carbon fiber-reinforced polymers (American English), carbon-fibre-reinforced polymers (Commonwealth English), carbon-fiber-reinforced plastics, carbon-fiber reinforced-thermoplastic (CFRP, CRP, CFRTP), also known as carbon fiber, carbon compo ...
, an inner shell of thick
polystyrene Polystyrene (PS) is a synthetic polymer made from monomers of the aromatic hydrocarbon styrene. Polystyrene can be solid or foamed. General-purpose polystyrene is clear, hard, and brittle. It is an inexpensive resin per unit weight. It is a ...
and padding which must be in contact with the wearer’s head. There are, however, several major differences that make the two types of helmets non-interchangeable: #Motorcycle helmets do not need fire protection because at high speed the rider will fly far from a burning motorcycle. In contrast, auto racing helmets must have fire protection since a driver is not likely to be able to escape if a car catches fire. #Auto racing helmets can have a narrower field of view for greater head protection than is possible in a motorcycle helmet, especially when the driver is following a clearly defined track. For this reason, many auto racing helmets are illegal to use on a motorcycle over public roads. #Auto racing helmets must be tested for sharp collisions with a roll bar which a motorcyclist is not likely to encounter. The fire-proof material used in racing helmets occurs in the inner lining and is known as
Nomex Nomex is a flame-resistant meta-aramid material developed in the early 1960s by DuPont and first marketed in 1967. Properties Nomex and related aramid polymers are related to nylon, but have aromatic backbones, and hence are more rigid and mo ...
, having been first introduced to racing helmets in 1967. In the 1960s and 1970s as crash fireproofing developed, concern became raised that in ordinary use racing helmets offered very little ventilation because they have more complete head coverage than any other type of helmet.“The Thermoelectrically Cooled Helmet”
Practical solutions to this problem were not developed until the 1980s when thermoelectric cooling was developed; however, most customers and governing bodies have preferred alternative less sophisticated means of improving ventilation over the past thirty years.


Personalised designs

Many drivers – especially in open-topped cars such as Formula One cars – will have bright, vivid designs to help distinguish them from other drivers. These designs will traditionally remain with the driver throughout their career, although in 2015 the
FIA FIA is the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (English: International Automobile Federation), the world's governing body for all forms of motor sport where four or more wheels are used. Fia or FIA may also refer to: People * Fia Backst ...
introduced rules limiting F1 drivers to one design per season to curb a recent trend towards regularly changing the design. This rule was removed from the
FIA FIA is the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (English: International Automobile Federation), the world's governing body for all forms of motor sport where four or more wheels are used. Fia or FIA may also refer to: People * Fia Backst ...
regulations for the 2020 Formula One season following criticism from F1 drivers and fans.


See also

*
Motorcycle helmet A motorcycle helmet is a type of helmet used by motorcycle riders. Motorcycle helmets contribute to motorcycle safety by protecting the rider's head in the event of an impact. They reduce the risk of head injury by 69% and the risk of death by 42%. ...


References


External links


Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile

Snell helmet standards
{{helmets
Helmet A helmet is a form of protective gear worn to protect the head. More specifically, a helmet complements the skull in protecting the human brain. Ceremonial or symbolic helmets (e.g., a policeman's helmet in the United Kingdom) without protect ...
Helmets Safety in auto racing