When I’m not sim racing, I’m studying motorsport, often by letting old races play in the background while I work.

Lately, I’ve been digging into archived Indy 500 broadcasts, which are fantastic for soaking up both the technical and aesthetic DNA of their respective eras.

They show everything but the old commercials and make me feel like I’m time-travelling.

But the 1977 Indy 500 broadcast offered something more than atmosphere.

Around the 54-minute mark, after Jackie Stewart gives his characteristically candid take on track safety, Chris Economaki delivers a short segment listing every piece of safety gear a driver would wear for the race, with prices!

That caught my attention immediately.

With so much talk today about the rising costs of competing in top-level racing, I realized this was a golden opportunity: a chance to do a real apples-to-apples comparison between the cost of 1977 and 2025 safety equipment.

Even better: the vendor featured, Simpson Safety Equipment, still exists under the name Simpson Race Products.

This meant I could go straight to the source, nearly 50 years later, and uncover some surprising insights about how costs have shifted, where the pain points really are, and what this says about the evolving economics of racing today.

Methodology

All the costs in 1977 were taken from the original TV segment, I have left out the cost of the bag since it is less relevant to the analysis
I escalated the costs to 2025 levels with this inflation calculator, taking 1977 as the baseline
Where possible I selected the cheapest price (at full MSRP), Made In the USA option from Simpson (since the products from 1977 were most likely American) which also complied with the 2025 IndyCar ruleset

Overall results show a 40% increase in normalized IndyCar costs from 1977 to 2025

The tabular summary of the analysis of normalized cost data from 1977 to 2025 of safety equipment in IndyCar reveals several insights about the nature of the equipment and the impact that regulations have on the overall cost structure.

Before we dive too deeply into the cost analysis, we should remember that in racing there are three types of cost escalation in motorsport:

Nominal (“normal”) inflation
Technical/regulatory inflation, for safety or quality-of-racing purposes
Market (supply and demand) inflation

The headline result is that in as close to a 1:1 comparison as possible, safety equipment costs have increased 40%.

In other words, over and above nominal inflation, costs in 2025 due to regulatory inflation are 40% more expensive than they would be if costs for the same products in 1977 were escalated over time.

Why is this?

The answer is straightforwardly, that these are not the same products!

Each and every element in the summary table is higher-performing and more comfortable than what AJ Foyt was wearing when he won in 1977.

However, each and every element in that table did not become more expensive in normalized terms, and the related insights are quite interesting.

The 2025 cost of an IndyCar-approved helmet masks the magnitude of normalized cost decreases experienced by other items.

Looking at the percentage change in normalized cost for each IndyCar safety item allows us to see more effectively the changes happening from 1977-2025.

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In less than 500 words.

The most immediately critical safety items have become more expensive

The pink column indicates that two items have become more expensive in normalized terms from 1977 to 2025: the racing suit and the helmet.

The racing suit is a relatively modest 8% more expensive over nominal inflation. Certainly this is a much higher performing garment than what drivers had in 1977, and it’s interesting to note that modern supply chains have probably helped to keep costs down; how much more would today’s racing suit cost if it were Made In the USA?

The clear outlier is of course the helmet, whose cost has categorically soared from around $500 in normalized costs to $3,000 for an FIA 8860-2018 homologated model, an almost 6X increase!

We can surmise that this is due to several factors:

More R&D required as regulations become more stringent
A cost structure which involves specialized manufacturing and quality control in limited locations
Potential for higher liability should something go wrong with one of these helmets
A relatively small market size which must shoulder the burden of a high cost structure
The simple fact that because manufacturers have some leverage for this type of specialized product, they have the ability to hold firm on pricing (from a driver’s point of view: no properly homologated helmet, no track time).

These explanations are somewhat academic, because ultimately the cost is the cost, and a helmet now accounts for 55% - more than half - of a driver’s basic safety loadout, up from 13% in 1977 in normalized terms.

More commoditized (yet still critical) safety items are significantly cheaper than in 1977

The helmet and racing suit are the two “frontline” items protecting drivers in the event of an accident, but they are not the only safety items contributing to their well-being.

Nevertheless, driver’s gloves and racing shoes among others are now significantly cheaper than they were in 1977, despite being higher performing.

The cost decreases in normalized terms for these items are striking: -29% for underwear, -64% for the balaclava, and -66% for driving gloves!

Key takeaways from the available cost data for IndyCar

The data is fascinating on its own, but it becomes even moreso if we think about the implications it represents:

These cost increases are only the tip of the iceberg for overall cost escalations. Indeed, to make the comparison work I had to compare like-for-like items, but this ignores completely that drivers are now protected with measures such as the HANS device that were still decades away in 1977 (and we haven’t even addressed “external” safety elements such as aeroshields, and technical regulation changes such as the hybridization of power trains). If the minimum level of safety equipment for a driver is up 40%, the overall cost of racing could be up by multiple times that, and will continue to increase, maybe even accelerate, as new technologies and regulations are introduced.
Regulatory changes are a potential blindspot for financially precarious racing teams. The substantial cost of the helmet over the past 50 years is directly tied to the implementation of more stringent regulations; these costs are all borne by racing teams in IndyCar, but they are not borne equally. For those teams already “on the bubble” (and there are teams in this situation), a regulatory change represents a step-change in costs and this can be catastrophic. To the extent possible, racing teams should seek as early as possible to quantify these costs and account for them.
Supply chains have nevertheless helped keep costs down. Whereas the gear presented in 1977 was probably all-American, the same can’t be said for products in 2025. While some may lament this, the reality is that for certain items, supply chain trends such as offshoring and selling direct-to-consumer have resulted in substantial savings for consumers. In 2025, racing drivers and teams can buy equipment that is far, far better than what their peers wore in the late 1970s at a normalized price that would have made them choke in disbelief. The helmet that was top-of-the-line in 1977 is suited for no more than decoration today, and the lowest-end helmet you can buy (for about the same normalized price as that year) is much, much safer.
Tariffs have the potential to be highly destabilizing. Helmets Made In the USA tend to be made for cruising on two wheels, whereas IndyCar-approved helmets come from abroad. While the tariff situation continues to fluctuate, tariffs are a constant threat and stand to increase prices on cost items which are already very expensive.
Made In the USA doesn’t seem to be a cost impediment for some safety items. I was expecting that a Made In the USA item today would cost more than 50 years ago, but in normalized terms, Made In the USA racing underwear is actually down nearly 30%. It is no trivial matter to rebuild a supply chain, especially in the case of specialized equipment such as a helmet, but this data point indicates the potential for more USA-made products for use in IndyCar if tariffs become more of a factor.
The chasm between “pro” equipment and everything else is massive, highlighting the financial leap required. When you go pro, costs go up in ways you may not think of immediately, such as the example of helmets which in IndyCar must adhere to the highest standards. While it is certain that costs will go up, revenues may not; this highlights just how crucial sponsorships become, in an environment in which those are only becoming tougher to secure.
Cost-escalations are difficult to avoid, but with the right analyses they can be mitigated. There should never be a compromise on safety, and technical regulations will be mandated to teams. However, taking a close look at what every cost category entails can allow for planning and mitigation. In the case of this analysis, one could look at a 40% increase in equipment costs and not know where to start tackling that challenge, but knowing that helmets are driving the majority of that escalation indicates that this a good place to start and that a change in acquiring that item could have large effects on the broader cost structure.

Looking past the visor

This analysis started with a curious moment from a decades-old broadcast, but it led to something more serious: a clear, data-backed picture of the influence of regulations changes on racing costs.

Safety should never, ever be compromised and we should welcome any new measure(s) that increase safety on-track. However, these measures will likely always come at a monetary cost and in the face of this inevitability, those racing teams that anticipate this cost most effectively will be the ones best positioned to perform well on-track.

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Main image credit: Dhehaivan via Unsplash

The $3,000 Helmet: An IndyCar Case Study in Compliance-Driven Cost Inflation