We have a new Southern California 1/8th mile track that just opened this week down in the San Diego area. This track has had one Press Race with 60 cars last Wed and Friday was its first open test n tune race sponsored by the organization Racelegal.com.

On this Friday night the late model Trans Am in the link had a Nitrous backfire going down the track and came to a rest with smoke billowing out of the hood.... a couple of trackworkers ran or drove down with a couple of fire extinguishers.... but couldn't put it out and I guess ran their extingiushers to empty. Thus, they backed away everybody to let the car literally burn to the ground... which is exactly what it did. (You can see the complete step by step pictures within the link... however, you will have to register with that site to see the album of pictures, but only takes a few seconds to register.)
http://www.imagestation.com/album/?id=4289870899

Here is where I am looking for fellow racers opinions.... Is the track guilty of any wrong doing, or should this be chalked off to " Thats Racing " ? On a local board this is being debated, and I know the owner of this Trans Am is potentially bringing a lawsuit against the track. I think the vehicle owner believes the track should have been better prepared for this and put the fire out. I do not know what the tracks position is.

As a note, his car did pass tech inspection. And basically after it had burnt to the ground a fire truck did arrive and extinguish the fire what looks like fairly quickly. From start to finish on this was approxmiately 10-15 minutes, and the owner was not happy all the track was doing was watching it burn.

I think I know the owner of this car from Carlsbad, but not sure, I haven't seen his name yet.

I don't have an opinion.... not my department so to speak, but is interesting.

The picture slide show in the link is rather Graphic if you're a car lover.... :bb

cheers,
Beach Bum


[Modified by Beach Bum, 9:11 PM 6/21/2003]

 

Todd - having read your post and viewed all of the pictures, I seem to be forming an opinion. I don't know if it should be mandated, but I certainly feel more comfortable racing at a track that has adequate fire suppression abilities. Clearly, this new track does not.

Let's change the scenario a little bit - the fire is just starting and the driver, for whatever reasons, is trapped in the car. My car is on fire, I am trapped, and I burn alive. When I was twelve years old I saw a man burn to death in his own car, down at the beach on PCH. This is my worst racing nightmare.

One of the reasons I like to race at LACR is they they have more than a couple of bottles in their crash truck. A measly fifty gallons of water could make the difference between surviving or dying in this situation. So now what would everybody think about racing at a track that only had a couple of fire bottles and NO other means of fire suppression. :eek: :nonod:

Gary

 

I meant to go there, glad I missed out on the meltdown. That track is on Indian land isn't it? I wish the racer the best of luck in bringing a lawsuit, I'm not sure what is required of the track operator in that situation - what "laws" (U.S. or Indian reservation) might apply. There is, to my knowlege, no insurance company writing racing coverage for any street/strip car, there are companies that write insurance for trailered race only cars.

Something for all racers to think about: you might be amazed how ill equipped many tracks are for handling contingiencies. Within the last year I was at Irwindale when a racer flipped over going through the lights - it was only then did I notice that there was NO ambulance/medic crew on duty that day! They had to wait for the fire department to arrive!

The Barona racer may be upset about the loss of his Trans Am, but consider this: last year there was a Super Chevy Jet exhibition funny car driver, Jerry Gannon, that died needlessly in a fire that could have been extinguished. Compounding the fact that the fire crew was not versed or equipped for the type of fuel used in the exhibition jet cars, the track emergency crew drove another vehicle over the fire hose on the fire truck - tearing it off :( It burned to the ground WITH Jerry inside.

Thomas

 

Total horse crap. No need for that to have happened. The fire truck with "Barona" on the side is the town's FD or the track's? Track is not NHRA?
Good to see the guy got out ok. Track learning a hard lesson.

 

The lawyers will make all the money no matter who's at fault.. ;) ..If I recall, don't we all sign a disclaimer indemnifying the track when we sign the tech card ?....sorry to hear about the guy's car though.. :(

 

Paul, The fire truck is not the track's, that is one reason why they had to wait while the car burned down. Barona is where the track is located near San Diego. Track is not NHRA, or IHRA, it used to be a sand drags facility. The sand drags where not going well, so they decided to convert to an ashphalt track and get all the street racers and local sportsman racers. The reason for the record quick construction of the facility is that they did not have to submit to the layers of local, state, and federal regulations and endless "reports" that normally are required for any race track construction - (construction happens much faster on Indian land).

At this point it is actually the racers that are learning a "hard" lesson. Besides, the blue book on a '94 Trans Am won't exactly break the council's back - should they choose to pay. I actually think that racer will get a quicker, fairer, resolution on his loss if he goes directly to the track/Indian council then if he retains legal counsel.

Thomas

 

Man that sucks big time. I don't even know what to say.

 

Gary, I agree... makes you think doesn't it.

Tom, I think I met the driver that died in that Rocket car last year at Pomona before that happened, didn't actually get to see the rocket car run though, Pomona noise ordinance wouldn't let it make it a pass.... considering they let the Nitro Coupes run, I assume that was a noisy car.
btw, hows the green rocket coming ? Back on the road yet ?

Paul, I "think" the track is going to be NHRA..... but not positive. btw, how's your new stroker motor coming ?

Fuzzy, I've only raced about a million times, and funny enough, I don't even know what the heck the thing says that I sign at each race.... someday will have to actually read it. :)

Mr. Mojo, Yeap & me either:(

Beach Bum

 

One word..damn. If/when I run Nitrous, I will DEFINATELY have a Halon fire system hooked up. Aswell as running a seperate small fire extinguisher. If that ever happens to me, up comes the hood and out comes the fire extinguisher. I've literally seen someone do that before at Sac Raceway. They smacked the wall and their car caught on fire, they jumed out with their OWN fire extinguisher and put OUT the fire. Quite an amazing sight.

 

Well the same exact thing happened a couple of years at E-town, a track that IS NHRA certified. It was Tommy Trotter's Super Street Outlaw Mustang -- he did a wheelstand at the launch, the car spun around on the rear bumper landed upside down and caught fire because he didn't have a fuel cell.

The car was engulfed in flames within seconds and NOBODY saw him get out of the car. It seemed like it took minutes for the track fire truck to get there, when I am sure it was only a matter of seconds. Even when the fire truck caught there they could not put the fire out, it was burning so intensely. Amazingly Trotter punched through the side window and got out of the car on his own. If he hadn't he would have burned with the car.

It was horrifying. Raceway Park let the car burn for 10 minutes and then decided to flip the car over the wall with a front-end loader. Nothing they did could stop the fire.

Thankfully Trotter made it out OK with just minor burns. It does make you think. It makes you realize that these are the risks of racing. You can't hold the track responsible. If you want to live a fail-safe life then don't race. The guy whose Trans-Am should be thankful that he wasn't in it! The car be replaced, his life can not.

Just my $0.02

 

Ouch! As someone pointed out. Glad there wasn't a person trapped inside.

Come to think of it. I seldom see a fire turck at any of our strips. But they may have provisions that accomidate such emergencies. Its something that many of us never think about, until its too late.

Sorry to see that happen to anyone and Beach you are right. That is a groosum pictorial if you are a car lover. I would have needed to be strapped to a board if that were my car. :crazy:

 

That story certainly makes me think... so let's think..... I don't recall seeing any fire trucks. I do remember being stuck at Island Dragway when their ambulance had to take someone to the hospital (not race-related). They would not allow any racing until the ambulance returned. MJ

 

E town ALWAYS has a fire truck & Ambulance when we're racing ! & if the Ambulance is taking someone to the hospital, they will NOT let anyone down the track until another ambulance gets there..

E Town has the best safety program of any track I've been to..

 

I was at Thunder Valley Raceway (Noble, OK) recently and noticed that they had extinguishers about 20-30 feet apart along the track (at least on one side). I thought that it was a good idea.

 

The first responsibilty of track personel is that the driver of an on fire car be safely removed. If the track personel sees that the fire is spreading they have NO reason to put themselves in further harms way until a proper fire crew extinguishes the fire. You can say what you want about them not having a dedicated fire crew on the ready - but they certainly had a lot more there for safety than ANY street races that I've ever been to. Hell, its hard to find a set of jumper cables at the street races, let alone any serious fire extinguishing equipment.

Does anybody here want to put some more thought into what happens when a severe nitrous backfire occurs with a "wet" nitrous kit that feeds fuel off the return line off the injector rail? Imagine in slow motion: backfire blows the inlet boot off the front of the throttle body, tearing the fuel line open, blowing the nitrous fuel solenoid right off, while a flame bellows out the front of the throttle body, the engine is still barely running and it continues to pump fuel onto the fanning fire through the now open nitrous fuel feed line. To this add the high plastic underhood content of a late model car, maybe even some grease and oil in the engine compartment for further fuel, the burning platic pieces supply their own fuel. Very quickly things get out of control and it burns to the ground. From Todd's account it all only took a matter of minutes to unfold.

Todd, The Green Rocket had continuing problems with the hydraulic clutch. I gave up on the finicky factory hydraulic system and Kiesler Automotive Engineering is building some custom hydraulics, using a hydraulic throw out bearing that eliminates the hydraulic clutch slave cylinder + a custom clutch master cylinder as well that will deliver what I never got out of the factory setup.

Thomas

 

Tom, look forward to you getting back out and racing !!

As an added interesting note in regards to the car burning on the track, I heard that the guy had a previous Nitrous backfire earlier in the evening and it caught in fire, which was minor and easily extinguished, however, he continued to race. (Don't know if this is true, just what I heard)

cheers,
Beach Bum

 

Reading this and looking at those pics leaves me 3 thoughts.

1) Run over to the C4 Forum and join the Fire Extinguisher GP
2) Sounds like the track did not have adequate fire safety equipment.
3) Thinking about Thomas' scenario I really don't expect the track personnel to risk their lives saving the car. If the driver had been inside I expect a lot different.