Here's another one:
https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/ar...fighting-fire/

 

I think the biggest takeaway is personal safety. You can do all kinds of things to a car to make it safer. But, racing and high performance driving is a dangerous activity. You may go your entire life without incident. But, you may be one of the few that does all the right stuff and still gets hurt. Two important things that Stephen points out:

1 -He should have practiced his exits. Precious seconds were lost because of it.
2- He had the right gear on so that gave him more time before serious burns. Not enough to avoid his injuries, but more...it could have been worse. SFI 3.3 underwear gives you at least 3 more seconds and that applies to tops, bottoms, balaclava and socks. I'll take that extra 3 seconds all day long.

He will come out with Part 2 soon and I hope he talk more about the car. Having a safe car is important, but things still go wrong.

 

Yep, that's Charles Espenlaub, pro driver. One of the safest guys you'll meet. Still got burns on his hands. I used this scenario as part of my initial research on underclothing.

I saw his gloves personally and, although they look fringed from the fire, they had no holes in them..they were intact. I asked Charles how he got the burns on his hand since his gloves stayed together. He told me it was all heat transfer. Imagine having that kind of heat transfer anywhere on your body and wearing flammable cotton or worse even, polyester like underarmor stuff under the suit. Real life evidence concerning underclothing. Can't create that in a lab.

 

Enough fires for me.

Got the Traqgear shirt, bought the socks, balaclava and undies from a local suppplier. Just ordered FIA approved shoes and gloves. Got the suit last year and going to get a new FIA approved helmet the coming weeks. (and I have a working extinguisher in the car of course)

AND I AM NEVER DRIVING WITHOUT ALL THAT STUFF ON ME EVER AGAIN.

 

Thank you! And me either!

 

We need to install fire suppression systems in our race cars ! 2015 I had a oil fire, the system has sitting uninstalled at the shop. It would have saved a lot of repair time !

 

I've had 2 big fires over the years in my 944. One when I was hit multiple times in a race and it crushed the oil lines and hot oil poured over my headers and ignited, and another time when the motor threw a rod through the side of the block. Both times I fired off my fire system and it saved the car & me. It was worth every penny and more I paid for it!

 

Absolutely. No fire system, no driving for me in race car. Pull wire systems are too inexpensive not to have one.

 

Ernie is the one who got me back on track after an oil fire at Mosport with my 944 two years ago ,my fire suppression system is what stopped my car from burning to the ground and my feet from severe burns !
Scrounged some vaccuum lines from Ernie , a new distributor cap from somebody else , borrowed another fire bottle and carried on my weekend.

I stopped against the guardrail in 5C and went out the window as my car was still flaming ... didn't even open the door !

Do put the odds on your side ...

 

Normally fuel lines go under the car in a 944.
Another often overlooked area is the shifter boot. I have seen many cars running with nothing, or next to nothing there. It could be a conduit to the right arm, and leg as happened here.

 

Great reminder to always wear full safety whenever on track, racing or DE doesn't matter. Practicing emergency exits is something on my list for things to master.

 

From what I can see after reading about both of these incidents,
it looks like the cars were dedicated racers. Are folks not running
automatic fire suppression systems? In both cases if an automatic
system with heat sensors located in the engine compartment, near
fuel cells and in the cockpit had been installed, I think the outcomes
would have been better for the drivers.

 

My old 944 turbo had a leaky fuel hardlines- They were actually recalled and replaced by Porsche a long time ago. I wonder if that was the problem, or part of it.

 

Sad story glad he will recover.

I remember the NorCal NASA guys randomly yelling 'fire' when we were getting teched as a drill. My Brother was in the car one time when they called the drill, man he got out fast, but it was still like 5 seconds. I remember him laying face down on the pavement at 7:00 AM going what the f*^%# and us realizing damn getting out is hard. We made changes then and had fun taunting each other by running the drill. Sometimes at random. Yeah some people may say we were calling false alarm but we never treated it like that. We would run the drill even when loading the cars or working on them. The best time was when the driver was sitting in full gear. I knew I could get out of that car fast.

 

FWIW, both BIG fuel fires I've been involved in were hatchbacks rx7 and 944

I've also shot off a 5# AFF type bottle, (by accident), it lasted about 20 seconds.. which was a lot longer than I thought it would be...