ARAI HELMET FACTORY TOUR
P100
Feature
the chin straps, inner cheek
and head liners, visor and vent
fitment and boxing.
Typically, a machine would
do this EPS fitting, but Arai
believes no machine can do
this task better than two human
hands, which contributes to the
expense, but also the quality of
the finished product.
Once the helmet has been
fitted with the interior, including
cheek pads, top liner, riveted
double D-ring retention system
steel rod with a pointed end that's
designed to literally go straight
through the helmet and into your
brain via the shell and weak points
own testing facility in Omiya.
In this specially constructed
room around the corner from
the shell construction area we
started today in, sits a machine
that can reach as high as 16
feet, and provide the most
stringent testing for high im-
pacts anywhere in the world.
If you want your helmet to
pass DOT standards, it'll need
to test with results below 400
G, while the SNELL test is 275
G. With a Japanese model
(Left) Another Nicky 7 gets
ready for a new visor. (Below)
Graphics layering is an
incredibly intricate and time-
consuming process.
and chin bar, its sent to pack-
ing for what is likely to be its
final journey to the customer. I
say likely because there's still
a chance it will be pulled at
random and used for testing
to ensure it meets the various
standards so it can be sold
legally across the world.
Arai doesn't construct
special helmets for testing, as
Mitch Arai showed us by pulling
a helmet from the production
line and strapping it to their
Rapide-IR fitted to the raising
arm, the Arai was dropped from
10 feet and registered 182 G,
easily passing the DOT test.
To be SNELL certified, an-
other test had to be performed
but from a lower height of eight
feet. Again, it came back at 182
G, which was remarkable given
it'd already absorbed such a
massive hit first time.
And finally, we were ushered
into the shell penetration test
room, with a menacing-looking
in the vents.
Snell requires a drop from
10 feet, while the Formula One
FIA8860 requires a drop from 13
feet. The Arai tech then dropped
our helmet from 16 feet, and the
rod hit the helmet three separate
times, and nothing got through to
the EPS liner. An interesting tidbit
was the helmet used for testing
was a motorcycle helmet, not a
Formula One helmet, and it still
passed.
Watching the test hammered
