HELMETS & OVERALLS/MITSUBISHI MOTORS/2001 WRC

News No.10
Friday 25 May 2001

HEAD CASES...!

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Back in the 1920s, crash helmets were only ever worn by racing motorcyclists and, even though a few motor racing drivers made early adaptations, head protection was not widespread for many years. In fact it was not until the early 1950s that the flying cap finally gave way to mandatory protective helmets.

Marlboro Mitsubishi Ralliart
Tommi Makinen's helmet

These days the specification is high tech and the materials used by the leading manufacturers come from the aerospace industry, forming an integral part of a driver’s safety equipment. Plain white helmets are also a thing of the past, most competitors - including the Marlboro Mitsubishi Ralliart drivers - taking the opportunity to sport personalised designs that not only reflect their nationality and personality, but also accommodate the all-important sponsors.

Essentially the crash helmet is worn to protect the brain from injury, offering little protection to facial bones and tissue or the neck, all of which come under the title of ’head’. When the head is banged, the brain is shaken up inside and, in the absence of a fracture of the skull, the damage is largely caused by the sharp internal edges of bone cutting into the brain surface. Apply a force to the skull and it deforms by about half an inch before cracking up. The force necessary to perform this is in the region of 5,000lbs and, if the average head weighs approximately 10lbs, this force is equivalent to 500 times the force of gravity (g). If an unprotected skulls hits a solid, flat surface at only 12 mph, the deceleration imparted to the brain is 500 g - the critical level.

The construction of a crash helmet is a balance between safety and weight, and high tech composites are used to yield the maximum strength and minimum weight. The Marlboro Mitsubishi Ralliart crews of Tommi Makinen and Risto Mannisenmaki, and Freddy Loix and Sven Smeets, all use Peltor’s top-of-the-range open-face helmets each with a unique and eye-catching design, painstakingly applied by hand when it has left the factory.

Complete with all its intercom equipment, their rally helmet weighs 1.3 kilograms, compared to a 1.5 kilogram standard road helmet. The outer shell gives a large degree of the protection and is made of a material called Tricomp, a mix of glass fibre, carbon fibre and polyaramide. It is important that this outer surface is smooth and free from projections as, if the helmets ’sticks’ to anything on impact, a violent angular movement can cause brain damage. The interior lining is made of the flame resistant Nomex® material, while the shock absorbing padding is made of polystyrene. Minimal distortion of this padding is vital and, in the past cork has been used, although it proved to be heavier than foamed polystyrene and less predictable.

Marlboro Mitsubishi Ralliart
Freddy Loix' helmet

The helmet is also equipped with built-in hearing protection that reduces ambient noise up to 25dB, thus allowing better communication through Peltor’s headset, which has a quick positioning noise-cancelling microphone. The headset-equipped helmets are linked together with a Peltor intercom, for example the newly launched Peltor FMT200. This has set new standards in rallying; 30 years of experience and co-operation with many of the leading co-drivers, including Marlboro Mitsubishi Ralliart’s Risto Mannisenmaki, making it the best on the market. The goal was to minimise the disturbing noise from other electronics in the car and maximise the audibility and communication in the extreme rally environment.

Once the helmet has left the factory, specialist painters take over and this is an art form in itself. Adding paint to a helmet can increase its weight by up to 150 grams, depending on the number of layers of lacquer and the type of paint. However, as long as the BSI approved sticker is still visible, drivers can create the wildest and most eye-catching designs.

But it is not a five-minute job for the Marlboro Mitsubishi Ralliart helmet painters in Finland and Belgium. While all four helmets for Tommi Makinen, Risto Mannisenmaki, Freddy Loix and Sven Smeets follow a similar theme, in keeping with the team and sponsor’s image, each has it’s own unique elements. None of these is more eye-catching than the yellow ’smiley face’ adopted by Freddy Loix in the ’o’ of his family name, something that the Belgian has used for over ten years.

Helmets arrive at the paint studios in standard white, which has to be stripped back to basics before anything can begin. The design of the individual helmet is then pencilled on and areas masked off for painting. While the majority of the helmet is painted to millimetric precision, with fonts and logos matched exactly, the smaller logos are applied in sticker form to guarantee accuracy. When finished, the helmet is covered with five layers of lacquer to protect the design from wear and tear. All this takes no less than 16 hours, for just one helmet.

FIRE - A BURNING ISSUE

Thankfully, scientific techniques now save the limbs of technicians as well as race and rally drivers around the world. In days gone by, overalls were simply worn to keep the driver’s clothes clean, and the only means of discovering the fire-retardant property of various fabrics was to cover parts of the body, set fire to it and see what happened! Fortunately technological advancements now negate the need for such brutal tests, and the FIA has stringent international guidelines for head-to-foot protective clothing that allows competitors to walk away, virtually unscathed, from even the most horrifying blaze.

Thermo Man(™) with its 122 electronic sensors

Working with team partners OMP, the Marlboro Mitsubishi Ralliart crews of Tommi Makinen/Risto Mannisenmaki and Freddy Loix/Sven Smeets can compete at the highest echelon of their sport safe in the knowledge that, in the unlikely event of a fire, they have the best possible protection.

Skin is as vital a body organ as the heart, liver or kidneys; without enough of it, we die. Burns destroy skin. The temperature of the tissues just under the skin surface, in comfortable conditions, is within a few degrees of 33 Centigrade. Exhaustive research, which started as early as 1947, has related the degree of injury to the temperature to which the skin is elevated. If this temperature is raised to only 45 degrees Centigrade, burns are initiated and, as the temperature is raised further above this critical level, so does the rate of tissue damage. Damage does not stop when the body is withdrawn from the heat either, but when the tissue temperature has dropped to below 45 degrees.

In rallying, drivers and co-drivers must wear gloves (not mandatory for co-drivers), balaclava, socks, shoes and homologated overalls that comply with the FIA 1986 Standard. It is also recommended they wear underwear that complies with the same standard. Ingeniously, drivers of single-seat cars in races with standing starts are required to wear gloves of a high-visibility colour that contrasts to the predominant colour of the car to clearly draw attention their to the race starter in the event of any difficulties.

Thermo Man(™) is unique to Du Pont, makers of the Nomex® material

The FIA 1986 Standard for heat and flame-resistant clothing for competition drivers, including the revision of January 1987, stipulates that overalls/suits must cover the whole body extending to cover the neck, wrists and ankles. Large toothed metal zips must have flame-resistant backing tape and covering flaps made of the same fabric, and any ’Velcro’ type fasteners must also be made in the same flame-resistant material.

FIA-approved testing houses, of which there are nine worldwide, set rigorous standards and garments must be accompanied by certification that each of its fabrics has been tested to the ISO 6940 Standard, a basic flammability test. The specimen is then subjected to the ISO Test method for Protective Clothing against Flames before receiving its homologation.

Thermo Man(™) before the flammability test...

Samples are held in an 800 degrees C liquid propane flame and have to meet or exceed the minimum requirement of 12 seconds to record second-degree burns, which reflects (approximately) the escape time for the driver. Yet more sophisticated is ’Thermo Man’ (™), a highly complex life-size dummy equipped with 122 electronic sensors used to simulate burn patterns. This advanced and complex experimentation equipment is unique to Du Pont, the producers of the Nomex® and Deltac fabrics used to make the Marlboro Mitsubishi Ralliart drivers and co-drivers competition overalls.

Given the right conditions virtually anything will burn, but the aim is to create material that resists destruction by flame. Certain materials are inherently resistant to flame but, for various reasons, are totally impractical to be made into clothing. Nomex® is unique. It is a modified nylon able to withstand much higher temperatures than other man-made fibres, breaking down at over 370 degrees Centigrade. Research showed however that a single layer of Nomex® would not prevent critical burn injury so, by adding layers - of which three are now standard - the transfer of heat to the body is dramatically reduced. The quilting effect and the air cushions it creates, along with flame resistant underwear, help stop the heat of a fire getting through to the body.

...and Thermo Man(™) after.

With the addition of a balaclava, gloves, socks and shoes, the driver is well protected. He is not, however, fireproof, but the industry standard protective clothing will dramatically increase his chances of survival during the critical time of escape.

Each driver and co-driver has his own specification of overalls customised to meet the exacting demands of the job. Co-drivers invariably add slots for pens and time cards, normally located on one of the arms or on the outside of the leg, below the knee. Each basic suit, without any sponsors’ logos, takes four hours to make but, start adding complicated logos, and this alone can add 12 hours of millimetre accurate sewing to each set of overalls.

Drivers are constantly demanding thinner, lighter suits to cope with cockpit temperatures, which can top 50 degrees Centigrade in some of the hotter countries where Marlboro Mitsubishi Ralliart competes. Different materials have been tried, but the combination of its fire protection qualities and light weight, currently make Nomex® an unbeatable solution.

MICHELIN - NIPPON MITSUBISHI OIL - ENKEI - NGK - OHLINS - OMP - PIAA
PELTOR - BELLEROSE - SABELT - SCOTT USA - RAND WORLDWIDE