jrgordonsenior

I've been hesitant to post this story hoping someone from the Arizona region would. I think it's time. The Director of NASA Arizona had the unthinkable happen, his car caught fire at over 100 MPH. Remarkably he survived and was released from the hospital this past Friday. The car was a Acura Integra in full race mode....

Sunday April 3

"Sat night was the closest call with death I have ever had and I hope none of you ever experience anything similar to what happened to me. I can without a doubt GUARANTEE you that if I took the time allowed by the CCRs (10 seconds out the door and 15 seconds out the window) to exit my vehicle, I would most certainly be dead today.

Initially there was a puff of white smoke. No big deal, I just figured I blew up yet another engine so I lifted off the gas. About a half second later, I saw in my peripheral vision a small flame pop up in the passenger area. About a half second after that, the flame got a LOT bigger and I started to pat myself on the back for buying the biggest fire system available. Before my hand even reached the fire system pull cord, the entire cab was filled with DARK black smoke and bright orange flames completely around me.

People talk about how hot Arizona is in the Summer. Boy, let me tell you about some heat! This wasn't just really hot, it was "pure pain". This was excruciating pain I never thought possible to experience w/o dying almost instantly. The thought of that moment actually brings tears to my eyes as I type this out because all I could think about was the fact that I was goig to die and I wasn't ready to leave behind my wife and two young kids.

I don't know how my brain was able to function under those conditions but I figured I had to try vs just give up. I'm sure some of you might be thinking they would never give up but this heat was so intense I seriously couldn't think straight. I didn't think the fire system worked because there was absolutely ZERO relief for me but from what some folks told me, the fire was put out for a short amount of time but then sprung right back up so perhaps it did and bought me a couple extra seconds. Those seconds which likely helped saved my life as well.

I was going pretty fast too when this happened. Well over 100MPH as estimated based on the fact that I just shifted into 5th gear and I usually run the car up to 100MPH in 4th gear. I told several visitors today it was a little over 100MPH but I forgot that I was running a much taller tire when this happend so it wouldn't surprise me if I was closer to 105-110MPH. The long story short is my car stops pretty well, but when your interior is a raging inferno it seems like it takes a "lifetime" to slow down, especially when your brain has other things to perform besides just threshold braking.

At this point I have my eyes closed and I am holding my breath and hoping that I'm driving in a somewhat straight line and jamming on the binders while trying to drop my window net (which I defintely struggled with a bit more than during any of my "2-3 second" ideal practice runs). I recall still going extremely fast but thinking "I can't take it any longer and I have to get out of here at all costs". I went to stick my head out the window but I couldn't because I forgot to unlatch my harness. EPIC Fail!! Luckily I was able to find the harness release and unlatch myself with lightening speed and get my head out the window while still braking. I must have jerked the steering wheel when pushing myself out because the car went into a slide at this point and I went to jump out the window. Somehow my thigh got caught on the window opening and instead of diving out the window cleanly, my leg(s) stopped me short and my body went straight towards the gound. Somehow I managed to get my hands out and use them to "run" my body along the pavement while I untangled my legs/feet from the window opening (window net???) and the car swung around. My own car barely missed crushing me before impacting the wall. Whew! Extremely disoriented and knowing I could still be in harms away I saw a wall the jumped over it.

Next I managed to run to my dually which was the first support vehicle on scene and grab a 20# fire extinguisher to get the car fire put out about 90+%.

Wow... just, wow... I am in total disbelieve at this point that I made it out. Sure I made a few mistakes but after reviewing the video multiple times from the time I figured out there was a fire and going ~105MPH to the time I was completely out of the car was about 8 seconds. I have 1st and 2nd degree burns on my face and 3rd degree burns on the back of my neck. I assume that 4th degree equals dead so thankfully I wasn't in the car one millisecond longer!

The one thing I did wrong was NOT put on my balaclava. That was simple stupidity on my part and my injuries would likely be a lot less or just minor had I took the additional time to put it on (you know how things go when you're rushing around though right?). The CCRs state it's not required (unless you have facial hair) but these are so inexpensive it's doesn't make sense to not force them to be worn all the time since you never know when something like this will happen. I'm actually requesting that the CCRs going forward require this vs the language that is used which is along the lines of highlighy recommended or something like that. FYI - The fire suit and recently upgraded Carbon X socks, SFI shoes, etc. all worked flawlessly!

I'll see if I can figure out how to post the videos (from the hospital) as they are extremely eye opening and will hopefully get many of you to go out and buy more/better safety gear vs those lighter weight wheels you've been eye'ing for a while now. My theory is the header wrap caught fire around the tower turn (as can be seen by Ramin in the tower as well as a small amount of smoke in the video) and I think that small fire melted one of the oil lines when then ignited it and turned the underside of my car into a rolling fireball! Then not having a rear window sucked all the fire directly into the cabin".....

If you want to see photos of what fire does to skin open this thread on their website. There are several pics from the hospital on the first page (it's 25 pages long).....
http://forums.nasaaz.com/showthread.php?t=4774

tonypai

Wow, I'm glad he's ok.

67King

Thank you for posting. I've never been through this, but fire is something that just scares teh bejezus out of me. I punctured teh gas tank on my daily driver on a cold rainy day a little over a year ago. My twin girls, 5 at the time, were in the back, and I couldn't reach the seat belt release because their baby brother's seat was in the way. It did not catch fire, but it scared me so much that it made the decision to get new (bigger) daily drivers much easier. Loved ones can't be replaced. I have been treating the track car the same way, had a much nicer cage put in than someone of my skill level needs because I'm paranoid about egress.

Very happy to read that the driver's injuries were less severe than they could have been. I know human nature tells us "it won't happen to me," which reinforces how important showing folks that "it can" is. Seeing some pictures of a helmet with its visor down from a Spec Miata fire has changed my opinion of visors. THis has me thinking about more protection.9

SH || NC

Another 'thanks for posting'. An unfriendly reminder that I should try harder to loose few pounds and fit back into my suit....

claykos

I was not at the event but have heard quite a bit about it.

One key factor (in my opinion) that did not get a lot of attention was the fact that he had removed the rear window from his car (it is a Honda Civic Hatchback - don't laugh, it will give most GT3s a run for there money at 2200 lbs and 350+ hp). This caused the fire to suck into the car through the back due to the low pressure in the cabin and act like a flame thrower on his back. The most severe burns were on the back of his neck through the seat belts holes. It is my opinion that if he had had rear glass in the car he would have been basically unharmed.

jrgordonsenior

Thanks Clay for the car clarification. I can't tell them apart.....

I heard a Corvette burned to the ground today at Spring Mountain without any injuries, and a Rennlister's GT3 snapped a serpentine belt today at T-hill filling his cabin with smoke causing a scare. Car and driver are both OK. Full moon?...

MelanomaMan

I imagine we'll see some video from Tage's incident at some point. There were some challenges with editing/posting video from the hospital I think. Just like we learn from eachother's track videos, this is a good one to see and have an understanding of how things can unfold.

He was serious about safety and quick exits before which paid huge dividends this time, and will want others to be equally prepared to act quickly if faced with something similar <knocking on wood>.

The key things he mentions in discussing the incident is practicing quick exits and balaclavas.

We're all very glad he is ok, and the NASA AZ team are a bunch of pros in the way they handled a very difficult situation.

DC5Chick06

Wow, so scary. So glad he is ok ... fire is my biggest fear in our sport

924RACR

Holy crap, wow, good to hear he's survived...

Good points to remember - I'm glad he points out it was a "dinky" little car... often so many think that slower cars or cars that aren't racing are safer...

Sounds like he also didn't have a closed face helmet, given the facial burns? Definitely worth considering as an upgrade...

I always wear a balaclava too - as much to absorb helmet sweat as for protection!

M758

Tabes car is a lowly civic, but will run times near a GT3 cup. The car is was to fast for what it is.

Tage is ok from that standpoint that he he is alive, but spending nearly 2 weeks in hospital is not really ok in my book. He will wear the scars from this for life.

While fire is rare it is nasty stuff. Never forget that. Seems like the suit did it's job, but what did not was the gap between the suit top and the helmet. That is where a balaclava would have helped. The burns on the back of his next are nasty. The burns on his face are ugly, but seems like they will heal on their own.

My take away is firstly I am happy to wear my balaclava. Every bit helps. Second is to practice yur exit from the car. Tage was going 120 mph or so whe he chose to bailout. It takes time to slow from that speed. Even so he was out in mere seconds. Much longer and his bruns would have been worse.

Post event look at the car, which did nit burn down, was broken transmission mount causing the engine to shift and rip out and oil line.

jrgordonsenior

Something else to think about is the design of your fire system. What size fire bottle (largest-duh), how many nozzles and where to point them are all equally important. I hope Tage lets us know how his system was configured and where it failed if in fact it did fail. Oil fires can be more lethal than gas though I think the distinction is irrelevant....

I run 2 nozzles adjacent to my steering wheel pointed directly at my body (blue on left below), and 2 more pointed at the fuel rails, 1 each side....

Carrera GT

Thanks for posting this. Horrible, but very real for anyone in any car on the track. And a timely reminder at the start of the season.

Byprodriver

Wow thanks for posting this, fantastic account of what happened, not the usual "everything happened so fast"! Best wishes for a speedy recovery.

Carrera GT

Well worth reading the thread in the link to NASA NZ.

Worth noting that helmets are about to go out of date -- next helmet for me will be full face with external air and water, driving with the visor down so I'm not relying upon cabin air to breath while engulfed in flames and fighting to bring the car to stop, then eject through the window. Everything needs to be on elastic retractors (window net, harnesses, mic, air, water, coolshirt) so there's no snags getting out -- no edges or hooks that can catch the driver clothing on the way out the window ... even details like knee and elbow pads for the landing on the asphalt.

Noted in the author's remarks, I didn't see that he hit the battery disconnect (that should be part of hitting the fire system since the battery could be the source of re-ignition of the fuel/oil fire.)

It's practically impossible in some cars, but it seems like a "brake lock" (parking brake or foot pedal lock) would be useful to have the car stop itself rather than rolling over the driver or continuing an uncontrolled spin as the driver ejects.

As ever, even at a pro events, let alone DE's, the track emergency responders are very unlikely to be there in time -- you have to keep your head and save your own skin.

This guy Tage really fought the odds and would have emerged almost unscathed if he didn't neglect to wear his balaclava. Had he been using external air to a fully closed helmet, he would have had a lot more precious seconds. His bravery and determination is not something we can assume will be in the cabin when needed. : )

Brinkley

Thank you very much for posting, while I have always used a balaclava and fireproof socks I have never worn fireproof long underwear or shirt. I just ordered a new balaclava, new socks, and all new long-johns/shirt.

So here is a question for those who have used long underwear for a long time.

Do you wear the fireproof long-john shirt OVER OR UNDER your cool shirt???

Please let me know what should be the standard.

Thanks again for waking me up.