ROSSI HELMETS

Location: Mugello, Italy

Date: Sunday May 31, 2008

Race position: 1st

AGV GP-Tech Rossi Double Take helmet (My Face) Mugello 2008

This is the now infamous helmet that Valentino Rossi wore for the Mugello round of the 2008 MotoGP season. Until Misano became a MotoGP circuit in 2007, Mugello was the ‘home race’ for Valentino Rossi and it always attracts thousands of rabid MotoGP fans and pulses with an electric atmosphere. Every year Rossi has a special helmet designed for the Mugello race (past helmets have included the ‘heart’ design in 2007, and the ‘homage’ design in 2006), but for 2008 he pulled out all the stops and wore arguably his most famous Aldo Drudi designed helmet to date – the AGV GP-Tech ‘Double Take’ or ‘My Face’ helmet.

Rossi´s Aldo Drudi-designed AGV helmet features a picture of his own face, displaying a highly excited or shocked expression, which Rossi believes will give fans a sense of how it feels to ride the Yamaha M1 around the undulating Mugello circuit at speeds in excess of 320 kh/h.  Rossi’s face is on the top, so when he puts his head down, the face comes into full view. Rossi said: “It’s not a drawing, it’s a real picture of my face at the braking at the end of the straight here and I think it’s very funny!”

Rossi won the race at Mugello making it a record of 7 consecutive wins. Talking after the race, Rossi said:

“After winning the championship, winning at Mugello is the next best thing for me and once again today it was like a dream.  There is no way to describe the feeling I have standing on the podium in front of all of my fans here and I am so happy that I could win once again today. To win for the seventh time running at my home track is amazing but I felt quite a lot of pressure about this, so it’s a relief as well because I didn’t want to disappoint everyone!  It’s been a hard weekend for everyone because of the bad weather and the lack of dry track time, but my crew have done a fantastic job with the bike and my M1 was wonderful today. Once I got to the front I was able to make a gap from the others but towards the end it was unbelievably hot and it became quite hard to ride.  I wanted to ease off a bit but Casey was pushing hard behind so I had to keep going.  Thanks to all of my team, to the engineers and of course to Bridgestone!  I’m really glad that I’ve been the one to give them their first win at this track and they did a great job today because my tire worked virtually the same from start to finish. It’s been a fantastic day, it’s always one of the best moments of the year for me and now we’ve made a bit more of the gap at the top of the championship so things couldn’t be better.  Honestly after this weekend I think I would like to go to bed for five days but now we have to go straight to Barcelona! My face now is a bit more tired than the one on the helmet.”

Image gallery of the AGV GP-Tech Rossi Double Take helmet (My Face) Helmet:

Technical Specs:

*Super-light carbon-kevlar construction shell
*Cool max interior fabric
*Fully removable and washable interior padding and neckroll
*Clear, flat, anti-scratch and anti-fog polycarbonate Race X visor with tear-off system
*Extra quick release visor system, which doesn’t require tools
*Double D ring chin strap
*Integrated ventilation system with channels directly in the helmet shell
*Valentino Rossi Double Take design

WHERE TO BUY THE AGV GP-TECH ROSSI DOUBLE TAKE ‘MY FACE’ MUGELO 2008 HELMET:

Replicas of the Aldo Drudi designed helmet that Valentino Rossi wore at the 2008 Mugello round of this year’s MotoGP has now been reproduced and is going on sale in strictly limited numbers in November 2008. The stock is very limited so this helmet will become an instant collectors item.

Very limited stock of this helmet was made and shipped and most online shops are now out of stock, however, we have found some stock left at Designer Helmets:

(this is a limited collectors edition and highly collectable, so even if small or x-large is not your size, its worth picking up one to sell on ebay when all stocks are gone)