A few years ago we knew a rider who grew his hair almost the same length as Marco Simoncellis. This guy fell of at, I think, Snetterton and his helmet came off while he was rolling on the tarmac. Surprisingly the helmet strap was still fastened !!!

He was lucky not to lose his life and the full analysis report of the accident showed that:

"The helmet was too large for the skull size of the rider and literally floated on the riders hairstyle. When the guy hit the ground the hair compressed and allowed the helmet to slip off."

The helmet was a 62 worn by a guy whos head size AFTER he had a haircut was 56 !!

It is early days to identify the cause of Marcos death but I remembered this precedent.......That rider who survived, subsequently had a very close haircut and invested in a proper sized helmet.

I'm sorry to submit this so soon after this accident but the previous crash came to my mind.

Do scrutineers check that helmets fit snugly...? I'm sure they do !

Over on the other TT websites forum a contributor states that a helmet should be verging on the uncomfortable if it is to be a proper fit and after being involved in an incident,many years ago, when a riders helmet came off I would tend to agree and that was according to Premier helmets at the time.

At club level the rider helmet is checked by the scrutineers before each race meeting, it's checked for overall condition, the date stamp and the gold ACU badge should be present, the visor must be genuine and finally it's checked for "fit", it must be a v close fit i.e not move side to side or up and down when the scrut moves it while the rider is wearing it, he will then put a sticker on the side to show it's been checked over.

I imagine MotoGP riders helmets are made to measure, tailor'd for the individual rider.

RIP #58

I feel sad to have to add to these comments but I have always been concerned about the 'hair'/helmet issue in all codes of racing. Regardless of whether it played a part in this terrible tragedy I think riders may think more seriously about this in the future.