Jay's efforts at preventing head and neck injuries were, unfortunately, brought on by a crash with resulting neck injury that paralyzed him. He knew what better protection meant by first hand experience. Until his accident, we blindly took safety for granted. A fire suit, helmet, roll cage, and good seat belts were plenty. When his showroom stock Mazda flipped at the Runoffs, all those things worked, but his seat broke free. The resulting injury to his neck paralyzed his body and almost took his life. Sadly, hind sight and his example made for some fairly sweeping rules in race car safety. I say "sadly", because it took an accident such as his to bring our attention to safety to the forefront.
He new what it meant to suffer from ignorance, and he didn't want it to happen to any other racer. When the Hans device came out, and Dale Earnhart died, the buzz at the race track was about what to do, how to do it, and how it could be afforded. That was the inspiration he needed to go ahead with his research. Unfortunately, when everything comes out of your hip pocket instead of a grant or corporate effort, things get tough. Hopefully, his efforts will be continued and a reasonable, safe, and affordable device will go into production.
By the way, I gripe like everyone else when I have to buy or build new safety equipment for my racing effort. But when I think about how Jay was injured when he thought he was safe, and the pain and effort it put him and his wife through, and how those injuries eventually led to his premature death...I shut up and right the check.
