Racing helmet

This happened to world champion driver Niki Lauda at the 1976 German Grand Prix race at the Nürburgring in a crash from which he barely escaped alive.

A recent Australian study also suggests motor racing may have the highest rate of actual injury among major sports.

[3] However, a study conducted between 1996 and 2000 by Fuji Toranomon Orthopaedic Hospital in Shizuoka suggests that only a small proportion of these injuries are actually to the head or surrounding areas.

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.

[5] In the period following the war, concern about head injuries in motor racing continued to grow much faster than efforts to design safer helmets.