After Tony Bettenhausen died in a plane crash in 2000, I painted this helmet as a tribute to him. Its my personal helmet that I have worn riding or karting, but I usually just keep it on display in the Paint shop. He was a great person I was proud to have known, and its my daily reminder of the reason I ever got a chance to work in racing. It white diamond pearl and Dayglo orange with black outline.
These were two of the first helmets I ever
did, and was also my first attmept at a "fade". They were done for the
late Melvin
"Luke" Lucas (fuel) and the late Russ Roberts (vent man) for the '95 season. The
race car on the side is a sticker, so the white to black fade was about the peak of my
creativity on these two. Nonetheless, I was happy with them, and from then on, Began
"tagging" my work with a small sticker.
These are the helmets for the fuel and
vent guys, and were painted to match the car. In '97, only these two members were required
to wear a helmet over the wall. (We had alternating vent men that year, thus the third
helmet).
In '98, we decided to have the team
helmets match the drivers' helmet , instead of matching the car. I used our driver, Helio
Castro Neves' helmet as the "template". I then transferred the design over to
our helmets, and had outstanding results. Doing helmets isn't my strongest area yet, so I
was thrilled with how these turned out.
Unfortunately, they were stolen while the team was in Australia by someone who must have
thought they were the drivers' helmets. I suppose that would be a compliment, but I never
saw them again.