T2x
Icon/Charter Member
That was the Nordskog helmet or so it was called. When we had the very first safety meeting back in 1987, after Mark Lavin was killed and while the Lavin Foundation was being set up, Bob Nordskog, Gary Garbrecht, George Linder, representatives from Bell helmets and Lifeline among others were called on to provide expertise and a technology baseline. We all got together in Los Angeles and Bob Nordskog was adamant about his helmet design. It was a fibreglass skull cap with an optional leather "turtleneck" that wrapped around your neck and shoulders before crossing under your armpits. It prevented any helmet "bucketing" no doubt. What Bob would not accept was that the injuries (basal skull fractures) that killed Mark, and almost took Bobby Saccenti from our midst a few months earlier, were impact based not bucket injuries. He became quite angry and thought we were wasting our time talking about canopies, cockpit reinforcement and oxygen systems, while paying little attention to his helmet design which, by the way, could not get a D.O.T. construction or safety rating and therefore was never approved.
There were a few copies of his helmet made and one of them wound up in the hands of my tunnel boat racing buddy, Marty O'Neill, on the east coast. I am sure that he was safer wearing it in an open cockpit, ultralight racing hull where you were pitched out with minor impacts in flips and wound up skidding along the water's surface, but in a large offshore cockpit that dynamic is very different. I clearly recall Bob Teague (Nordskog's crew chief) laughing for years at people who thought canopies were a good idea... ( Real men race standing up of course
)....until he did a "Face Plant" into the upper dash board of his open cockpit, Fountain Vee in Corpus Christi after a minor hook in a turn. Today he is the two (or more) time Champion in Super Cat light...sitting down .....in a full cockpit Skater.
