Not sure where that strip is, but doesn't look like their safetyl crew had the right equipment to fight the fire....................Maybe because I raced/worked as a Tech and Safety Crew memmber with the SCCA, but without the right equipment........................it's hard to put out a fire............and if that guy had been trapped in the car he probably would have been "Toast"! Most strips ask us racers to have our vehicles "Tech Inspected", how about we "Tech Inspect" the tracks Safety Personel/Equipment!!!!!!!!! IMHO
Nitrous is an oxidizer - you have to get it cold enough that it no longer releases oxygen - can't be done with CO2 and Haylon isn't legal to use anymore. They did pretty good at gertting the fire out a few times - but as soon as the nitrous got to hot fuel it just burst into flame again. Liquid helium or Neon might have worked better but they just aren't standard fire-fighting tools.
PaulS, I guess I didn't realize that Haylon isn't legal...............in the SCCA we can and and do use Haylon 1301 and 1211 and I have a haylon extinguiser in the Maverick. I guess NHRA has either never looked close at the label or just never looked at all. The alternative to Haylon would be an AFFF system which is also legal in SCCA.....................and of course NO2 is not legal in the SCCA racing. Our safety teams carry both types of extinguisers on their vehicles and all corner workers do also.................minimum of 5gal.
Dupont FE-36 is the new environmentally friendly alternative to halon that NHRA is requiring. The car should have had a fire system and if he would've been able to turn the bottle and fuel system off it would have helped things out tremendously.
yea,it wouldn't had been as bad if he woulda turn everything off,all my electronics are ran through relays so i just gotta kill the key and that also closes my bottle opener,thats also why a fire suppression system is getting ordered for my car this winter.
I may be mistaken, but that car didn't even have a kill switch. At one point in the video, it appears that one of the techs is trying to get close to the back of the car a couple times, then it looks like he found no kill switch, so he backs up and tells the guy with the extinguisher to just back off and give up. That is my impression of what I saw in the video. I may be wrong. My car didn't even have 250 HP and no power adders but my cheesy 1/8 track told me I needed a kill switch.
Thats a helpless feeling. We burned up a Commander in the parking lot at work a few months ago. Its amazing how fast it got out of control. If you cant get that hood open you've got a problem. We dumped about 5 extinguishers but the fire won. Sure gets the blood flowing.
Had a friend up in Oregon that was working on a fuel leak in his newly finished 32 Ford HighBoy..............caused a spark/static electricity when taking the carpets out...............he and a friend tried to put out the fire, but the fire took the 32 Ford, his 05 Mustang...........he got his 40 Ford out with only $14k worth of paint damage and his 56 Crown Vic.........the garage was a total loss, so was the garage next to it and his beautiful log home........................his insurance company is going to replace everything but it's hard to replace 23 years memories. I have a fire sprinkler system in my house and garage................but fire can destroy in just minutes................everything!
Just to put this in perspective for some of you guys who will not buy or don't feel SFI drivers suits are worth having..................I have a complete SFI 3.2A/10 suit, gloves, underware and shoes and if I had been trapped in that car with fire for the full 54sec.....................I would have been taken away with 2nd and 3rd degree burns...................my suit is only good for 20 seconds before I get 2nd degree burns............even the NASCAR suits which are good for 40sec and cost thousands of dollars depend on a safety crew with the right equipment..................to be there quickly................
thats gotta su ck watching all your hard work melt to the ground. like they say though nobody got hurt and cars can be replaced, better there then halfway down the strip.
Hey Don, maybe that why us old times are "All THROTTLE NO BOTTLE" Sorry to all and I know that wasn't funny but I couldn't help but laugh. Kinda looked like the 4th of July.
