Racetrack Safety

[UMPDream]

I'm sure this has been discussed for years and it's a shame that something terrible has to happen for things to change.

I want to ask the more educated ones out there, what type of fire fighting equipment does it take to put out 26 gallons of race fuel? Many years ago, I watched how the Lincoln Speedway (PA) takes safety very serious when it comes to fire. Jeff - you may agree.....

[MasterSbilt_Racer]

I'm sure this has been discussed for years and it's a shame that something terrible has to happen for things to change.

I want to ask the more educated ones out there, what type of fire fighting equipment does it take to put out 26 gallons of race fuel? Many years ago, I watched how the Lincoln Speedway (PA) takes safety very serious when it comes to fire. Jeff - you may agree.....

Foam or Halon

[hitmanscrew]

Water alone isn't a good idea you should mix foam in it its not hard to do we carry 3 foam extinguisher on our engine or you can use a foam educators it's easy and part of firefighters basic education at our dept.

[rgwilliams69]

I read that they used foam, or at least had it, during that incident. Was that not the case?

[smithmod]

Safety crews need to be equipped with class A foam and at least 500gals of water. A direct inject foam system like CAFS built into the pump of a fire apparatus would be best. I don't know anything about the Charlie Floyd incident so I won't speak to that but what works best is if the track has a well equipped Vol. Fire Department in their area and they throw those guys a hefty donation to come give support to the track safety crew throughout the season. Also, training with track crews. I think most of these guys sign up to help just so they can be at the race track for free, not all but most, they have no idea what could happen or how to respond to situations when they do. Train on how to extricate injured drivers in various scenarios, know the cars, and know how to do what you are asked to do. That's my 2 cents.

[flagone]

Training and preparation are the keys. BUT the bigger key is better built race cars. By that I mean better quality fuel cells with rollover protection valves/balls along with the far more safe SOFT bladder system which makes puncturing nearly impossible. I like the thought of on-board fire suppression systems however the lose much of their effectiveness if the car is upside down.

I don't know if any of these were present in the case of the Charlie Floyd incident. I am not sure if any of it could or would have made a difference. All of it would be defeated if the fuel cap simply came off or was loose. I am not sure if the finest fire fighter team in the world could have made a difference. If you have ever fought that large of a fire you would know that much fuel is going to be difficult at best.

My thoughts and prayers are with his family and everyone involved in such a terrible incident.

[erm11]

A major issue that needs to be addressed in my opinion is driver being able to get out if the car gets upside down.
I know when I am locked down with my Hooker harness in my containment seat it would be impossible for me to
escape out the passenger side in the event I was upside down and on fire. We have taken precautions for every
other scenerio but this and is my greatest fear. Do the roll cages need to be taller, deck and bodies lowered, escape
hatches built into the roofs for escape if trapped while car is right side up? JMO

[zach51]

ERM11 nailed it, that is what I was going to say. I had a buddy flip his modified Saturday night landing on the roof, he is skinny but tall 6'3" and in great shape, wasn't injured and it wasn't on fire that he knew of, and he still struggled to slink out of there. He told me he had watched the video of the Floyd accident Saturday morning and when he landed on his roof that is what he thought of and was mildly in panic. The cars are too sleek, roofs too low. A lot of these drivers can barely get in and out when the car is sitting upright. I hate to pick on anybody, but I don't see guys like Terry Phillips and Rambo being able to shimmy out very well if on their lid, and god forbid on fire and/or injured (specifically hands/arms). I've flipped many times in a micro sprint, at least with that you have a way out the top if the side exits are obstructed.

And window nets, (and I hate to be the what if guy) but what if Bloomers window net rod was bent in a roll-over and stuck and he was upside down? Not good.

[Bubstr]

When I was in the Navy, I worked on the flight deck of a Carrier. Everyone was trained in fire fighting and pilot rescue. When you have a fuel fire, to put it out you need to take away one of three ingredients, fuel, oxygen or heat. Standard procedure was water from umbrella sprayer to suppress heat and oxy, to rescue pilot along with foam to isolate fuel on the deck from heat and air. This is finished with foam spray to put it out. It is out amazingly quick, with proper training. We are talking 5 to 6 hundred lbs of jet fuel. It will scare the Bejesus right out of you. You jump 10 feet in the air and land with a hose in your hand. It's out in seconds, not minutes. I think a lot could be learned from this technique. One comes to mind on board the USS America. Pilot and RIO out in less than 30 seconds, no burns. Fire out and deck cleared for landings in 10 minutes. There is no replacement for training. I think one thing that could be helpful is a standard quick roof removal. Pull pins or something like that.

[RW57]

One of my projects this winter was to raise roll cage on my son's car this winter for 2 reasons one he is 6 ft 3 and if car got upside down his head was right at top of hoop and 2 so he could get out in case of a fire. He used to not be real concerned about safety but a couple of incidents last.year opened his eyes.

[kidrock]

Any and all safety measures should be taken on both the safety personal from the track and from the drivers point of view. All should be trained on their part. The driver should sit in his car and think of all the scenario's that could happen and what he would do in a event that it actually did happen no matter what it is. Now I realize you can't think of everything and sometimes panic sits in and you can't think but, you just might. He might even see something that needs to be fixed he never thought of

[zeroracing]

This is a very scary deal, I was not there, from post of people there it appears that the foam was not used until multiple minutes had went by. They had issues getting it to work, once it did the fire went out quickly. The track itself had a press release but I would imagine they are wanting to cover themselves so are not telling the entire story.

My car has a dropped deck and raised roof, I am not a small guy and want to be able to get out the right side of the car if I need to, I do not think that the majority of cars are able to get out the right side in a hurry. Also I think that proper training is important, some tracks seem to have a great group that is committed to fire safety, some it is the promoters friend and doing favor.

I hope that tracks realize that it might happen, allow the dropped decks without pushback, raised roofs, easy access from the right, and do training. Training the safety crew to fight the fire quickly would go a long ways.

[zeroracing]

To be 100% honest, I am also worried about catch fences, been to tracks where cars have gone through them, or they fell over into the crowd side. I worry about a car going through them and injuring a fan. At least when we strap in the race car we know that we are facing risk, somebody taking their 6 year old to the track is just trying to share a great experience and build memories.

[zach51]

I won't speak to this particular track or accident, but in many cases, driver's know that there is not sufficient safety equipment/teams at their track, and they may acknowledge it and express concern, but nothing ever happens. And guess what? The drivers keep showing up to race instead of putting their foot down because they love to race. And I am in no way saying accidents like the one last week are the drivers fault. I just know from personal experience and I'm sure many others here as well, have rolled out onto a track knowing that they probably don't have everything they need safety-wise.

[W2Racing09]

I think most drivers and fans would be more than willing to pay an extra dollar to get in the track if it meant a well trained fire crew could be present. If you figure you get 500-1000 fans weekly and another 300 in the pit area that gives 800-1300 to spend on safety - I think for that you should be able to afford the fire dept sending a staffed truck over for 4-5 hrs.

Thanks,
Jeff.

[zach51]

That is a good point. I've also been at tracks where they have halted the program for over an hour because the ambulances had to leave the property to take a highway accident call. It was a bit of a bummer but better than an accident happening and nobody available to rescue.

[heinen81]

Here's what concerns me on this whole deal. I saw the video come up on Facebook, and it was like 6-8 minutes long. I watched about 2-3 minutes of it, thinking WOW, there goes someone's hard work this winter. Saw allot of people standing bye helplessly watching, a few people ran back and forth to a truck for what seemed like nothing in particular... and figured "well, they must just be letting it burn itself out..." The fire never changed in appearance, no white smoke/steam that comes with water... no haze you would expect to see from chemicals.... just a roaring consistent fire. I thought, well that sucks, and clicked off the video. Come to find out the next day, someone was still in that car. Made me sick. Now I wouldn't go out of my way to watch the video at this point, knowing someone was trapped, however nothing while watching that video would have tipped me off that somebody was trapped in that car. Maybe the video doesn't show everything, but it doesn't lie either. For the 3 minutes I saw, it sure didn't look like that fire was changing in any form whatsoever, and I saw allot of people in t-shirts and jeans helplessly standing there, because they couldn't get close to it.

[HomerD]

It should be a concern to all racers that the track have fire personnel. Racers should demand it.

[Aluminium Block]

For the 3 minutes I saw, it sure didn't look like that fire was changing in any form whatsoever, and I saw allot of people in t-shirts and jeans helplessly standing there, because they couldn't get close to it.

This track has a volunteer fire department with a real fire truck, and a real ambulance on site. They did what most tracks that are considered to be "safe" are doing. There are tracks that function without a fire truck on site, and without a real ambulance. Someone commented on facebook that the pump on the fire truck misfunctioned, and it took about 3.5 minutes to get anything to come out of it. If this was the case, this could have happened anywhere. Even if a fire truck is tested before the race begins, it doesn't mean it can't misfunction five minutes later. This is a horrifying event equal to what happened to Jim Dunn. The Jim Dunn accident caused major changes in the design of dirt late models. The next year, the NDRA small body late model came out, and there were new requirements for fuel cell constructions and installation. Will anything come out of this? I agree, the roll cages need to be higher to give more clearance to exit the car. A person has to be a contortionist to get in and out of these cars now with just 12" of clearance at the roll cage. Are HANS devices causing any issue in exiting?

[Crudbrother]

The "I heard" comments are running wild here in the Portsmouth area. One of which is that the drivers' Hans device somehow prevented him from escaping the car, that his belts had been undone. I witnessed this accident, and hope to never see anything like it again. It was just a feeling of helplessness. I do agree that the side opening on the cars is very small. You can see drivers struggling to get out of them even at the trophy presentations. The newer Swartz cars appear to be a bit "taller" than the other makes. Craig