This is my crash helmet from my motor racing days. It was years before I realized that I owed my life to this helmet. During a race, a car spun in front of me and it propelled my car into the air. My wheel was sheared off and it me hit full in the face by a wheel at 90mph. The wheel bounced off my face, hit the steering wheel, bounced back, hit me in the chest and pinned me in the cockpit as the car went sliced through a gravel trap for 200yrds. My helmet completely deformed under the impact but didn’t break and a head rest I’d added only weeks before kept my neck from moving and stopped the wheel from breaking my neck. I considered myself lucky on the day but I didn’t consider how lucky I was until the deaths of Justin Wilson and Henry Surtees in the last few years who died in similar crashes to me. That’s when I took the helmet out of closet and put it in a display case.
