If you have the March/April issue of Road Racer X, then you may have noticed a very cool contest that Suomy helmets is putting on in conjunction with the magazine. Participants have the opportunity to design the Suomy Spec 1R helmet that Ducati Marlboro’s Loris Capirossi will wear at the July 22 Red Bull USGP. In addition, the winner will win an all-expenses-paid trip to Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, where they’ll meet Loris and take home the (autographed) helmet after it’s all over. We spoke with Suomy’s Rick Marlin about the contest at last weekend’s Dealernews Powersports Expo in Indianapolis.
By CJ

RRX: Hi, Rick. How’s the show been going for you?
Rick Marlin: It’s been going really, really well.

I can tell. Every time I’ve come buy to talk to you, you’ve been too busy to talk.
Well, we’re introducing a bunch of new graphics and a new helmet, and what we’re really seeing at the dealer level is more and more enthusiasm and more and more stock in dealers. Our largest distributor is reporting dealer sales up 59 percent over the last year.

Great. Well, we’re pretty excited about this new contest Suomy is doing in Road Racer X. Can you explain to our readers what it’s about?
We’re really excited about this contest as well. Everyone has always said that Suomy makes—absolutely hands-down—the wildest graphics, and this has become one of our strong points. With the MotoGP in the United States and us having some really top-talent GP riders, it occurred to us that we could offer a win-win deal for everybody, with a contest that will be exciting and fun. We’re giving everyone an opportunity to actually design their own Suomy helmet. The idea is that we run this campaign, we give the consumers an opportunity to submit their designs, and we go through a design-selection process. The winner gets an all-expenses-paid trip to Laguna Seca for the 2006 Red Bull USGP. We fly them in, we put them up in a hotel, we bring them into the paddock, we introduce them to all the MotoGP racers, and they get dinners and hang out with us. The winner’s design will be painted by AirTrix on a Spec 1R helmet and worn by Loris Capirossi in the GP. At the end of the GP, Loris is going to sign the helmet for the winner, who will take it home.

That’s so cool. I’ve never really heard of a contest like that.
I never have either, which is why it’s so exciting. We’re kind of giving our enthusiasts—who have admired our graphics and loved our stuff for many years—an opportunity to actually get involved in playing the game. They’ll take a whack at having their design worn by a top MotoGP racer in the USGP, and they’ll actually take the helmet home.

I know you’re not a designer, but you work at Suomy. Do you have any pointers for these people, for when they’re coming up with their designs?
You know, I’m actually going to say no. Let your imagination go wild. Do what you want, and do what’s exciting to you, what really speaks to you and is an expression of your personality. One of the things I understand best is that you should let the designers design. The worst thing I could do is get involved in the process of creativity. That’s what we really want to do here, is to tap the unbridled creativity that we know the American sport bike rider is just itching to use.

That’s a good point. Even as a writer, I know I do my best stuff when I’m doing what comes from inside me; as soon as I start trying to write like I think someone wants me to, my stuff isn’t so good.
Yeah, although there’s one caveat, now that I think about it: Nothing with pornography and language, or anything derogatory, would ever be picked. You don’t want to automatically disqualify yourself with something that would be impossible for us to show on television or publish in a magazine. With that being said, everything else is okay. It’s a blue-sky project.

This pretty much just came together, so I don’t imagine he knows much about it yet, but do you think Loris will be pretty excited about the contest? He’ll probably get some extra press out of it.
Loris is a people person. All of the MotoGP guys—even people like Max Biaggi—are really nice guys and are really open to meeting the fans. I think that when Loris comes to understand how this project is going to be played, and how he’s going to get to interface with not only the winner, but no doubt other people who either admire the contest or participated in the contest, he’s going to dig it. He’s going to love it. He’ll be really proud to be a part of it.

Chris Wood at AirTrix will play a pretty important role in the contest.
Chris is the most talented painter today, and all of our best-selling graphics—without exception—have always been Chris Wood designs. Chris is going to take the winning design and executing it flawlessly, I have no doubt. Chris will manifest the design in a way that I’m sure the illustrator is going to be very happy with.

Is there a chance that Suomy might put the winning design into production?
There’s absolutely always that possibility. That’s one of the things that we’re excited about, is knowing that if this design gets the right response, then it’s very possible that we could actually launch this product and make it one of our mainstream product lines. Wouldn’t that be a kick?

What else is going on with Suomy?
Well, we’re really happy to have Ben [Bostrom] back in AMA Superbike. Ben has been a model spokesman for the brand in so many ways, and for the sport. As you know, he was on an underdeveloped team in World Superbike, and yet he performed admirably toward the latter part of the season. He was doing things on that bike that I don’t think anyone else could do. My faith in him as a talented rider is undiminished. It’s with great enthusiasm that I welcome him back home to campaign the AMA championship with our helmet. We couldn’t ask for anything more than that.

He’s been going pretty well in testing.
Yeah, we’re excited about it.

What’s the new helmet you mentioned?
It’s the Vandal. It’s really a teaser right now; we’re introducing it officially in late summer, but it’s a very well-priced [helmet], high-performance race and road helmet. It’s $299.95 in solid, $369.95 in graphics.

I know there’s a lot of talk in the industry lately about different helmet-safety standards. What’s Suomy’s take?
Five or six years ago, when we were first pioneering Suomy, we were at the crossroads of bringing this helmet in with the easily accepted and very well-established Snell standard, or going with other options. What happened was, when I took Suomy through the Snell-certification process, I just became aware of certain things that led me to conclude that I should explore options to provide the very best and very safest helmets that I could to the American rider. Being an ex-road racer myself, and riding since I was 12 years old, and knowing that I would be selling these helmets to not only fellow motorcycle enthusiasts, but my compadres and best friends, we got to a point in it where I realized that the best standard in the world wasn’t going to be Snell for us. After talking about it with the factory, we agreed that the timing was right for Suomy to be at the vanguard of this in the United States and not be a lemming and just go with the easy entry.

So what did that entail?
After a lot of research and investigation, we determined that the BSI Type A certification was inevitably the only real good option for us. Only the BSI certification provides the end user with a helmet, in their hands—the one that they buy—that is certified to comply with the standard. There’s not another standard in the world—outside of the Australian standard, which is exactly the same as the BSI standard—that offers the consumer that level of quality control. There’s no Snell helmet, no DOT helmet, or even an EC2205 helmet, that is actually certified to comply to the standard at the time the consumer buys it. Only the BSI offers that level of protection, so at the end of the day, we chose to go with that, and we think we’ve helped crack the market open to the discussion of standards. This is a very important dialog that’s now being had in various other magazines, which we think is only going to enhance the safety of the American rider. We’re proud that we played that role, and we remain very strongly in support of the dialog of alternative standards. Right now, unless someone can show me a reason why, we’re going to continue with BSI Type A certification in the future, and we’re proud to do it.

Great, well, thanks very much.
Right on.