It was supposed to be a chill, laid-back track day–the Grassroots Motorsports Track Day at the FIRM–where we and our readers are welcomed by our official test track for a full day of open pit lane and easy lapping. We were joined by Randy Pobst, too!
And since he’d never dr…
I've touched on this before but my one and only car fire was on a test day. Much like your Miata the motor let loose and caused an oil fire.............going into the fastest corner on the track (around 130mph).
I wear all the gear all the time because things happen.
As I was sitting here trying to come up with something witty to say about Randy getting in the car after you "warmed it up" for him my brain went down a more serious path.
I started thinking about how many different student and customer race cars I've climbed in without taking the time to know how to activate the fire system or shutoff the master kill switch. I should do that.
Then I started thinking about how much of the bailout practice I do on my own cars will translate to other cars. I can't see me practicing in another car but I really should at least think about potential challenges for getting out while I'm strapping in.
My last thought was really more of a question for Tom. When you said you drove the car again that day did you mean that it was moving under it's own power or did you mean you had it out on the track? If it was the later I question the wisdom of doing that with a discharged fire suppression system right after proving the value of a functional system. Of course I'm questioning that from a distance. I might have done the same exact thing.
Tom’s at HPX but, after the fire, the car didn’t go back on track–just into the trailer and home to the shop.
David S. Wallens said:Tom’s at HPX but, after the fire, the car didn’t go back on track–just into the trailer and home to the shop.
Good choice and, a smarter one than I might have made.
Yeah, that was enough excitement for one day.
I had a engine fire just in my driveway, on a car that has been together, highly maintained and driven for a decade. In my vain attempts of not waking the neighbors I didn't fallow my general startup processes. That became costly once it backfired out the intake and lit the filter elements on fire. Thankfully i had a fire extinguisher on hand, this could have be far worse. Img is me blowing the fire extinguisher dust out of the engine bay to evaluate the damage. Tl:dr E36 M3 happens generally at the worst of times, do everything you can to be prepared for it.
No mask? brave man.
I remember the first time I had to wear "full gear" when I drove my buddy's WRL NB.
With my own NA track rat, it had no top, 4-pt roll bar, fixed back seats and 5-pt harnesses. So it was easy to get in and out of and look around. It was just closed toe shoes, long pants, long sleeves at Hallett.
His NB I felt pretty claustrophic in it. Full cage, nets, HANS device, couldn't really get my hand out the window for a point by (it was a WRL track weekend, not a race weekend). It was difficult to get comfortable like that in just one weekend.
True, a caged Miata can feel tight. First time I drove my friend’s SSC Miata, I was like, um, this is different....
I haven't been wearing a fire suit in my track day Miata since it has no top and a factory fuel system, so it at least feels safe enough that I can bail quickly if things got toasty. For the stock car though, I plan to only drive that in full gear head to toe - it's much tighter and harder to get out of, and it generally feels like it requires a higher level of safety precautions to be taken.
rewedmiata said:E36 M3 happens generally at the worst of times, do everything you can to be prepared for it.
A big life lesson here–and it definitely applies to more than just race cars.
I came to this thread wondering if it was the next version of "wear your helmet to work day", only to see actual fire! Glad it worked out as well as it did!
In reply to David S. Wallens :
I sold my caged/hard topped NA and the guy didn't want the Kirkey road race seat,he had a halo seat he wanted to use.
I said won't fit and if it does you can't get in or out worth a damn with the halo,I pulled the seat as requested.
He sent a message a couple days later asking for seat suggestions lol.
codrus (Forum Supporter) said:I came to this thread wondering if it was the next version of "wear your helmet to work day", only to see actual fire! Glad it worked out as well as it did!
Oh yeah, real fire. When I saw Tom entering the turn too fast (and backwards), I kept the shutter firing.
Then I saw the flames.
I kept taking photos. :)
Glad it worked out. GRM fire articles are always thought-provoking.
Question about the failure - any pics of the failed part? Was it under stress from, say, an unanchored hose or a hose with some tension on it when the engine moves? Do you HAVE to have a remote filter on this setup? If it's like the LS3, you might if you also run a cooler.
It gives a person pause.
It doesn't really seem like there was anything track-specific about the episode outside of perhaps especially toasty headers. And whatever fudge factor you want to put on everything living a harder life on track...
At what point do you do a full fire suppression system on a car that's 90% a road car? 100%?
Risk assessment is hard, which is much more a statement of wrangling with the idea than trying to be funny.
Excellent photo of an unexpected and scary moment. Excellent work by those involved to shut it down and put it out quickly!
I was back at the tech garage wrenching on my car and missed the excitement; really glad that it wasn't any worse.
AMiataCalledSteve said:I haven't been wearing a fire suit in my track day Miata since it has no top and a factory fuel system, so it at least feels safe enough that I can bail quickly if things got toasty. For the stock car though, I plan to only drive that in full gear head to toe - it's much tighter and harder to get out of, and it generally feels like it requires a higher level of safety precautions to be taken.
Our friend's C5 Corvette, with the factory fuel system, went from small flame underneath the car (spotted by a following driver) to fully engulfed in 17 seconds. If you only count the time he was aware of the fire, it was only 7 seconds. That's not long to pull over and bail out.
He went to bail out the drivers door, just as the flames roared up off the bottom of the car, he barely cracked the door and flames roared in. He slammed the driver door shut and went out the passenger side. He ended up with burns on his wrist, hand and tip of his nose (open face helmet).
You have the suit, wear it.
In reply to Tom1200 :
Very much wear the suit. And the gloves, and the balaclava and the, well, you get the picture.
And some related reading from the back catalog: Charles Espenlaub’s How I Became A Human Torch and Survived.
In reply to David S. Wallens :
What I also learned from that story is if the car catches fire; don't try to limp it over to the turn station, get it stopped and get out.
I guess it all depends. If I'm something where egress times are going to be even a second or two longer than a normal street car, I'll wear more fireproof gear. If it's a fairly stock ride, I'll take the risk on a track day. You assume just as much risk driving to the grocery store even though speeds may not be as high, there are many other risk factors to take into consideration.
Fires burn just as hot on the street and Dodge Ram 2500s with 4 DUIs behind the wheel hit even harder.
In reply to DirtyBird222 :
Ironically I do feel safer on track when it comes to rogue behavior.
I've had a friend killed that proper gear could have saved his case was purely one of not wearing a HANS and end up with a basal skull fracture. This further added to my wearing the gear on track.
While getting killed is obvious there are non life threatening issues as well:
We had a local get totally into track days; they progressively made their cars faster and faster yet never bothered getting the proper gear or outfitting the car.
Flash forward several months and one of them had a huge crash; they were extremely lucky to get away with nothing more than soft tissue damage (The roof folded on the passenger side). They were also very sore for weeks and nearly lost their job.
The fact that they didn't take the risk seriously tells me they were taking risks on track they should not have.
Additionally, while there wife was initially OK with the hobby, once the crash happened she was done. It rightly scared her; especially considering he didn't take the risk seriously.
The guy gave up the hobby for good.
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