Fire safety. A discussion. Not a witch hunt. Thompson 18 (Page 1 of 2)

Honestly what you did is really what needs doing Tsog. You can make rules, and you can tell people rules and hope they stick. But, the best way to ensure things are done right is to correct bad habits quickly and when they happen with helpful discussion. It's what the FAA used to do with inspectors ramp checking before they had all their money taken away in the early 2000's. The biggest killer isn't being dangerous, its complacency, little short cuts and oversights that work out fine 99 times out of 100 then become habits.

I was just out at the Mid-Ohio Nascar event and in pit and paddock there are just roving race stewards double checking to cover the organizers and the insurance companies butt and overall it works. Right now Lemons mostly relies on team to team and the occasional wandering official or judge when they have the time/extra hands on deck to do it what with all the butt-terrible black flag magnets on the track.

Fuel is an absolute PITA and is why I just use the dang track pump because gearing all the way up to hold a fire extinguisher or get soaked in fumble fuel just stinks.

Now to get Gingerman to upgrade to modern swipe and pay pumps.....Seriously, it's podunk airport level bad there.

Another incident I witnessed at Thompson:

A team was standing at the entrance to their garage bay attempting to modify the vents on their fuel cans. They were drilling out the vent holes to enlarge them.

Evidently they had not fully emptied or purged this fuel can, and then a spark from the drill ignited the residual fuel and vapors, leaving said individuals with a flaming fuel jug, and flaming gasoline on the pavement.

To their credit, one of the team members had a fire extinguisher at the ready during this whole process. They elected not to use it and instead stomp out the fire on the ground, and use the first rag (greasy or not) that they could find to smother the fire burning out the open end of their fuel jug.

All of this happened within a few feet of the garage, and within proximity to theirs and other teams fuel jugs that were placed outside of the garage. Not a great place to be playing with fire...

What I don't understand, and saying "because it's the rule", isn't an explanation. At CMP, on the hot pits we have to be in full gear to refuel.  In the paddock area, say during quite hour, or before/after the race, you are supposed to be in full gear also, though it's about 50/50 from my experience.  However if you fuel at the gas pump there, no gear required.  Is there some magical fire prevention system at the gas pump?

Regarding fuel transfer, we have three quick-dump cans. We have 6 other el-cheapo ones that would take 30 mins to dump into the car, so we transfer from those to the quick dump cans after each stop.  We do the transfer away from the garages,and we do use a funnel and drip pan to catch any spillage.   We don't use full gear while doing this since there is no ignition source, so we feel it's safe.  It's surely not any less safe than putting fuel into a hot car at the somehow magically safe fuel pump area.

Regarding fueling on the hot pits, we have to be in full gear, I have no problem with that, and I get it.  However, the steward just a few feet away who's telling you to put your visor down isn't wearing any safety gear.  That seems pretty unsafe to me, so what's the difference?

There is infact a huge amount of non magical fire safety technology at gas pumps. First depending on state it’s usually a concrete pad not asphalt, concrete doesn’t burn at burning gas temperatures. The pump itself has grounding systems including a crazy expensive hose (seriously, don’t break one!) the fuel reservoir is separated from the fueling area which minimizes runaway potential, the roof above the pump is an electrically bonded structure protecting from corona and lightning discharge, the pumps have multiple fail safe an kill switch systems, some stations now have fire supression systems in the roof to protect their very expensive point of sale/advertisement TV unit pumps. I mean gas pumps are prety magical.

And also pumps are venue liability not Lemons event exposure.

<snip>

I've proposed this before, and have been shot down.  Personally I think there is an easy solution (not to enforce the rules, but to make people aware of them).

Make an online test a requirement for acquiring or renewing a Lemons license.

Right now, all you need is a few $$$ and a valid drivers license and you're on the track.  For an organization that's under so much scrutiny, insurance-wise, I find that amazing.

I'd put together an online test, 30-50 questions, with the kind of questions that at least make you think about how to conduct yourself at a Lemons event, and make that a requirement for the Lemons license.

bs

You heard it here first. Spank said I was a good example and yall should be more like me.

Fuel into a hot race car is different than transferring fuel into another container. Its not nitroglycerin!
You need a substantial ignition source. Every homeowner with a lawnmower refuels and fills by container.
Imposing another rule of "HOW TO TRANSFER FUEL INTO ANOTHER FUEL JUG" is just making more people look away from our series.
I appreciate the sentiment of safety, but lets be realistic, Just pouring fuel is not going to let it explode.
Keep it away from heat and sparks and you will be fine!
Manny

Keep something in mind, while safety is very important. This is basically asking us to help a for profit company for free.

I like that Lemons is a private thing that I can just pay for and let them sort out how to do things safely and properly. The club model is a HUGE bummer and doesn’t seem to ofer ANY operational or financial benefit to the racer.

In the same vein, people get pad to manage safety. What they do thinking safety has a value not just in people not hurt, but money saved in overhead expenses as the safety record stays clean.

So while participants should definately all look out for eachother and offer a guiding hand when someone slips up and is doing something ill advised, or at the least, less than ideal, If Lemons wants more safety, Lemons has to sort that out themselves. It’s on them if things don’t get covered or recieved at safety briefings and during operation.

Overall I’m guessing they have decided where things are is a managable amount of risk for their exposure. And it seems like they aren’t wrong.

We can always be "more safe."  We can walk around paddock in our fire suits and helmets on - or better yet not be allowed to walk around at all and only be allowed to leave our paddock spot to refuel.  Or - no working on cars, since the vast majority of injuries happen while working on cars. 

The problem is with more rules comes more work arounds.  Remember the old gas nozzles on fill jugs?  Simple, effective, easy to use.  More rules/laws came in and we have 100% sealed systems that need to be hooked on a gas tank lip to use.  Just like the revised kill switch rules from a few years ago.  One accident caused the rule that a driver needs to be able to throw the kill switch back on.  What did most of us do?  We moved the kill switches inside the cars where it is harder for the course workers to get to should they need to.  Is that 'safer'?  Is that really better than a rule that might have said - "kill switches should be positioned such that they are unlikely to be touched during light on track contact."  How many fords still have the impact fuel cut switch enabled?  I've been in two cars where it got tripped. 

We're friends and I don't mean to be flippant, but I think there are more better low hanging fruit safety issues to be addressed - mandatory visors down, some type of experience required to get on track, drivers time on track limits (2h at a time, 4h per day), etc.

I agree with both responses. And watch out for others really does work, I've witnessed it first hand on the tarmac multiple times a year flying.

But I also know that even the FAA knows 100% compliance isn't realistic, like trying to get a 100% pure element, you just can't it's asymptotic. So Lemons together with the venue and insurance has decided on a calculated acceptable risk. And they seem like they hit a pretty optimum balance.

The important thing is to have open discussions like this of best practices. The problem being something like under 30% of racers are on this form, so only people who already care are thinking about it, as usual with everything.

So I don't think that, barring free officiating help, there is a lot more that we can be doing other than talking about and considering the risks and how to mitigate them. And I do trust that if Jay, who's pretty shrewd about risk, doesn't feel a un-quenchable need to pay for more roving stewards/fire posse, then things are probably within a pretty good overall margin of safety.

You will always get someone doing something dumb. You just say "Hey, I'm worried for your safety here." and talk about it. That sticks more than a 30 min litany of do's and don'ts ever will, fruit smashing or no fruit smashing.

The other alternative is Absolute Totalitarian Jay-mocracy, but that requires a Lot of manpower and as we see with black flags, ehhh only so effective.

I've seen both sides of Gasoline flammability. I know most of the time gas is basically safe. It has a pretty narrow Air/fuel ratio where gas vapor will combust in open air and at normal temperatures the vapor pressure is usually not high enough to develop that. But at the same time, I also know gasoline and a hot exhaust or brake rotor can go up with little to no notice. And I've also seen just how fast a plastic fuel jug on fire MELTS ,seriously I do NOT trust plastic fuel containers.If it were up to me everyone would have to fuel out of these or wait in line at the pump.
https://www.forestry-suppliers.com/prod … ety%20Cans

And given the extortionist price of the Hunsackers that apparently don't even hold up well in the powerful ultraviolet rays of the sun, it wouldn't even cost much more.

Well sure, If a boat refueling catches on fire you jump in the water right?

And the mom with the baby isn’t physically leaning over into the car that can catch aflame while unloading 5 gallons of accelerant with a zero fail safe dump bottle in their hands.

As with a lot of safety rules, you have to assume they exist because something bad happened to someone in the past. And one also has to assume if it seems overly cautious, one may not be in posession of all the real safety data to make that call.