ARAI HELMET FACTORY TOUR
P96
Feature
forces before they ultimately get to your head.
To this end, the vents are light and glued on, while
the spoiler on a Corsair-X is designed to shear off. In
a tumbling fall, all the extra parts on the helmet will
break off, and you'll be left with an egg shell protect-
ing you against the elements, sliding over or glancing
off objects, just as was intended all those years ago.
"Absorption is the last line of defense," says Arai
Americas Managing Director, Brian Weston. "Your
first line of defense is a strong, round, smooth shell
that slides to avoid or reduce crash energy before it
gets inside the helmet. You never know what angle,
what speed, and what energies are going to come in
an impact, so we design the helmet to basically ad-
"Additionally, material from the
helmet's liner must be traded to in-
corporate this rotational technology,
in effect reducing its capacity to ab-
sorb, unless you increase the helmet
size to add more material back in.
"Dealing with energy outside
the helmet, before it gets inside,
is where Arai prefers to deal with
impact and rotational energy. With
such a limited material inside with
which to absorb the impact energy
See the dark
belt at the eye
port? That's the
new Peripheral
Belt, made from
Superfibers,
to increase
the strength
around the
most vulnerable
area of the
helmet without
increasing
weight.
(Above) After leaving the second baking station,
it's time to get sanding.
By stage three of the post-baking prep, and
after hours of getting the shell down to a
smooth surface, final wet sanding is done
before paint/graphics.
dress almost everything we can imagine."
Arai is not against implementing something like
the MIPS rotational impact absorption system cur-
rently found in helmets like the Bell Race Star, but
it's still too early in the research for the Japanese
giants to go ahead with it.
"A smooth shell can slide across its entire sur-
face, avoiding or minimizing rotational force and
reducing impact energy before it gets into the hel-
met where the liner must absorb it," says Weston.
"Rotational mitigation technology inside a helmet
has a limited range or distance that it can travel and
therefore try to manage rotation.
