Ferrari Mailing List: New Type of Fire Extinguisher

[Douglas Anderson (dnt]

FIRE?  You want fire scarecrow?

 

Picture this – April 1969 – F5000 Saturday practice, turn seven Riverside International Raceway.  I am on the inside berm taking pictures.  Ron Courtney spins to the inside and noses into the tires. 

 

Since his car has no reverse and is up against the horrid apex tire barriers – he’s smack dab on the blind downhill line.  I rush down and start pushing on his LF tire along with a turn worker on the RF to give him room to turn and continue. 

 

Sam Posey comes out of turn 6 over 100 mph looses his brakes hits the berm and comes down on us bass-ackwards at over 100 . . . . and hits the wheel I was pushing.  Sam flipped upside down and squirmed out of his car – Courtney’s fuel tank was ripped open and Poesy drew the fire along with him.  Courtney was sprayed purple K or something and lived. 

 

I’m the guy in the dark pants.  An accident waiting to happen.

Doug

 

From: Ferrari <ferrari-bounces+dnt=dock.net [at] ferrarilist.com> On Behalf Of George
Sent: Monday, June 8, 2020 4:51 AM
To: DOUG <dnt [at] dock.net>
Cc: The FerrariList <ferrari [at] ferrarilist.com>
Subject: Re: [Ferrari] New Type of Fire Extinguisher

 

I am another with real-world experience with fires around cars and agree with Clyde that, while it may *look* like the next great thing, I think these extinguishers are just inviting trouble - for all the reasons he mentioned.  I also believe that, unless you've actually been *IN* the situation, you can't really grasp how the panic strikes you.

 

When our garage fire (which became a full-fledged house fire) happened, I had two dry chemical extinguishers fail on me.  Not because I failed to use them properly, but because they were old.  So here's the lesson - if you're going to stick with dry chem for simplicity (and nothing wrong with that if you're willing to accept the risk of the mess they create), be sure to shake them up once a month or else the dry chem will settle to the bottom.  Then, when you really need it, you get - nothing.  Which is what happened to me.  Just a weak drizzle that fell at my feet.

 

Off on a related tangent here - at the 6 Hour Endure that the Ferrari Challenge series held at Homestead in 2000, one of our 360CH cars caught fire.  The driver - for reasons still a mystery - drove it down pit lane (I guess looking for someone with fire extinguisher - but ignoring all the refueling rigs....) and one of those guys *thought* he was spraying the base of the fire, but was really just washing down the car's under tray with the dry chem.  No one had bothered to educate these guys about the cars on track.  Oy.

 

gp

 

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