I may end up having to divide this page up a bit later as it grows into separate topics or I may find out this works better as blog posts so I can add category tags. Maybe don’t get too used to the layout just yet. For the time being, I wanted to get a few useful bits of information up here to share. As I get more questions at different events, maybe this will be a good place to highlight some of those!
(If any of the links or media here breaks and you catch it before I do, email me! Check Contact Us)
Snell SA rating comparison
Ever wonder what sets the SA2010 ratings apart from the SA2015s? Snell posts all their standards right on their site if you want to get into the finer details of exactly what kind of testing your helmet has to survive in order to meet their ratings. These tech documents also may make why your sanctioning body requires a certain rating make more sense. The main page for all of their documentation is here:
https://smf.org/stds
(Don’t laugh at their page designation in the URL. I don’t make that!)
If you look to the right of the technical document with all the info in them, you will see covers and release notes that help summarize some of the changes from one generation of ratings to the next! If you’re looking for what changes are coming for SA2025 that last I spoke with the folks from Snell is looking to be released in Oct 2025 for the 2026 season for those of us north-ish, you can find that here:
https://smf.org/standards/sa/2025/SA2025_cover_Final_04012024.pdf
If you’re a helmet history buff, there’s info under previous ratings all the way back to 1959, including when the foundation used to be involved in ski, equestrian, and bicycle helmets. Get your kids started young in Snell rated helmets! (Disclosure – Bicycle helmets are no longer covered by Snell standards) 😛 Bonus points if you know the difference in SA2010 and SAH2010!
Roux Helmet Release System
Roux helmets are quickly becoming part of my bread and butter. I love these helmets. The price point is great. The acoustics are great. There’s plenty of great bells and whistles to set them up to your needs. I’ve even had one user tell me they loved “the little guys in the cheek pads” visible from the front, the logos. There’s a lot to like about them. Number one for me is since it’s number one function is as safety gear, Roux has built in an amazingly simple release system so that in the event of neck or spinal injury, the helmet can be lifted off a drivers helmet without having to wrench it off the driver. They’ve got a great YouTube video on how this functions.
Dry run this on your head and you’ll see exactly how little force is placed is on your neck. Honestly there’s not much of anything to feel.
I implore you guys, if you have these helmets and happen to be passing by EMS at the track, point this out to the paramedics. This system is specific to Roux, who as much as I love seeing more of their helmets showing up, is still no Simpson, Bell, Racequip, etc. It’s up to us to make sure they know if it needs to be used, how it works.
If you did the dry run and you’re using expletives at me trying to figure out how those little plastic tabs at the end of the release liner go back in the helmet, take it easy. Your cheek pads sit on top of a kind of backer board they can Velcro to. Put those little plastic tabs back between the backer board and the shell of the helmet and you’re good to go. Make sure you’re not back in there twisted!
Element Fire Extinguisher Demo
Another product I’m happy to have moved plenty of is Element’s fire extinguishers. Element’s still a relatively small company in the fire suppression market, but their reach has been growing rapidly. They also have a very interesting structure where they’re based out of Italy, have a sales channel here in the US, and ship product through North America out of Canada… but I digress. Maybe that will help make some more sense of why these extinguishers don’t carry US based approvals like DOT or NFPA though, which I agree with you, would be super helpful for those of us that use them in more than just our race cars.
One of the questions I get most frequently is how do you actuate them if there’s no trigger? I’m paraphrasing a bit, but hopefully that’s more than “How they work?” I’ll get to that in a second too. It’s got a cap on top, and a striker in the bottom and is lit a lot like a flare once you remove the cap. I often direct people to take a look at this video, which also does a great job demonstrating just how long you can have suppression on the fire for backup, corner stations, whatever, to get to you. Those that know fire know a quick response and the initial response is crucial to how out of hand things can get.
If you have a few minutes and you’re looking for general info on these, Jay Leno did a video with the company some time ago, that still holds up pretty well now.
If you’re into the real gritty details on how these actually combat the fire, they break down the chemical reaction required to sustain fire, which is why you can still breathe in the vicinity of one being used. They don’t displace the oxygen you’re also trying to breathe without a full firefighting ensemble (FFE) on. They have a technical document that will explain everything all the way down to a chemistry level if it interests you:
https://elementfire.com/pages/how-element-fire-extinguishers-work
There’s a lot of bullet points to cover for these, and I’m not really out to cover all of them here. You can find additional info in the news post for when we started stocking these extinguishers, Gamma Motorsports Stocking Element Fire Extinguishers! The main one for me, Element likes to tout “They’re lightweight for racing use” and they are, and that’s great, but the real number one thing is these don’t depressurize. They’re simple and LESS likely to malfunction – let’s talk about that in a second too. But they’re a lot less maintenance and easier to throw in a glove box and forget until you need them.
These things are wonderful, however, as with everything in firefighting, one plan does not cover everything. I still implore you to also have a plan B available. Whether an Element extinguisher is kept in the car as a back up to a full fire extinguishing system, or you keep a second portable Novec (Which is the replacement to Halon. I’m partial to FireAde’s AB myself) extinguisher in the car with you, be as prepared as you can. I have had one customer in the many I’ve dealt with told me when they went to use an Element extinguisher that they couldn’t get it to light and suspected high humidity may have dampened the striker on top. It’s fire. Things don’t always go to plan and you have to be adaptable, but one plan is always monumentally better than none. And who knows. While we hope it’s never us, reality hard checks some of us on just how good of a mechanic we think we or our mechanic is. Beyond that, we’re using a metal cage that is literally propelled by a metal box made to contain explosions and turn them into power. Sometimes things just go wrong. This already got way too long… but be ready.
(I spent a few years on a submarine where it’s kinda hard to call a fire department when things happen, so guess who the fire department was? If you guys want to talk fire safety, never hesitate to drop me a line. I will talk way more than you ever bargained for. Just don’t be the next screaming class alpha.)