Trapped in a Burning Racecar (Page 2 of 3)

Nope. Our fuel pressure is our oil pressure, to the extent that this concept has any meaning. It's one of the many* joys of running a two-stroke.

*Few**.

**Mostly just the one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtmffZV … e=youtu.be

Some additional footage of the car fire

I'm surprised the Medics hung out with the driver so close to the car right afterwards. 

Also, it is clear they need some bigger hoses.

Yea, they definitely could have used more power!...Like a foam truck or something!

Just spraying all the Extinguisher chemical away immediately after they shoot it.

The water hoses were clearly doing very little if anything. You need to smother a Fuel/Oil fire, Water just makes it dance around.

You use the water after the fire is good and dead to cool everything off.

Not even any helmets on the firefighters! We aren't allowed to fuel a non-burning car without visor-down helmets but here these guys are fighting a fully engulfed vehicle wearing just some suits, no helmets. Yikes.

Thank you for your efforts, fire fighter guys, but take better care of your delicate flesh! I don't want to read about "burned while putting out fire from around guy that was trapped in a burning race car."

That video link still works for me.

Holy moly. I'm surprised at the all-over-ness of that firefight and the lack of head-gear, too. That was an enormous fire.

The medium well roasted driver would tend to indicate a less than ideal response.

That fire was handled with pure amatuer enthusiasm and not professional preparation.  A 200'ish gal water tank and a 100gpm pump would be a far better setup than that flimsy shit that's barely adequate for a methanol fire on a go-kart from hell Indy/formula car.  S/F...Ken M

The cynical lawyer might note that the other promoter has a quite vested interest in defending COTA in every way, shape and form, since he very likely has a duty to indemnify COTA from any damages or claims. I wouldn't be surprised if the medical insurer seeks subrogation on the medical bills from the other series' insurance policy and/or COTA's policy. The cynical lawyer also would note that most other cynical lawyers would tell anybody in mgmt at the other series to STFU about this because it's either in litigation or pending litigation and your own self-serving words can be used against you when you decide someday that you need to assert a claim against the venue for its failure to satisfy its contractual and/or common-law duties. Running at the mouth has a tendency to cut off future avenues of escape, and a concomitant increase in cost. But then again, I'm a cynic, so take that for what it's worth.

I work in Health Insurance and I can tell you that even if no other legal action takes place the injured driver's health insurance plan will try to recover costs from the track's insurance company thru subrogation. That could result in legal action if the costs are large enough, the health insurer thinks there is a solid claim against the track’s insurance, and the track’s health insurance refuses to reimburse the health insurance company.

I don’t think controlling the narrative on negligence in the fire crew’s response would play into that insurance interaction unless it was so bad that the driver sued the track. In that case the driver will just get screwed because the health insurance company gets all their costs covered from what the driver wins in the case before he gets anything. I know when this happens with car crashes the driver normally ends up with a small fraction of the award while the insurance company gets most of it.

Agreed.  I lost him on this one.  Yes, in this instance a safety net and harness slowed him down.  So harnesses should be optional?  I guess if you know your car will only ever burn, and not crash, then yeah, you could focus on fire safety.  But regulations exist to enforce some minimal level of standards to protect you from things that are likely to happen on a race track.  The fact that one of them happens, and not the other, doesn't mean you were over protected in the wrong area.

This guy should have stopped at blog entry #2, and gone back to practicing how to use the equipment in his car.

bs

Right, and I agree with this point. But the way he delivered it was horrendous. I know what he was trying to say, I even see how he got to the wording he used. But god the way it's written is terrible.

It should have been an article on how the existing rules already cover 90% of possible dangers. How his incident should not be used to try and regulate more. And finally a huge section on what he personally learned and plans to do to prepare for the next time he gets in a car.