By David G. Firestone
While helmets have been around since the beginning of auto racing, full face helmets are a relatively new phenomena, having only come around since the late 1960’s. With the advent of full-face helmets came the visor. Visors or face-shields, are clear pieces of plexiglass that cover the open area of the helmet. In addition to keeping wind and rain out of a driver’s eyes in open cockpits, they also shield the driver’s face from fire, and can be tinted for racing in sunlight. Each form of auto racing has their own quirks when it comes to face-shields. Face-shields are designed to snap closed, and they all feature holes for the connection to the helmet, holes to keep the visor closed, and handles to help open the visor. This week we will look at other kinds of face shields.
This particular face-shield isn’t just a driver face-shield, it’s also a passenger face shield. This is an Arai face shield off my Andretti Racing Experience helmet. This was used by both professional and amateur drivers, as well as passengers. The helmet is designed that the face-shield can be replaced by unscrewing with a quarter.
This last visor is from racing artist and driver Dave Labs. While I can confirm this Bieffe made visor off his helmet is genuine, I’m not fully sure where this was raced. Labs has raced in both stock cars and drag racing. This looks more like drag racing helmet, but I don’t know for sure. 
That’s it for face-shields. Next week, I go off topic for a bit.
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