2012 NASA Nationals Huge Fire

2012 NASA Nationals Huge Fire

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Qxno1axFx4

Woooow, scary. Glad they both got out, I suppose incentive to practice exiting your car quickly.....

Holy crap! That's a good reason indeed for practicing quick escape from a car. Any reason what caused the fires to start? Was it from a collision between the 2 cars? Either way it's still a gnarly thing to come up on and I mean the bad sort of gnarly

Wow. It looks like a car went to the right past the crash through a puddle of fuel which then ignited. Glad everyone got out OK.

miataman86 wrote: Holy crap! That's a good reason indeed for practicing quick escape from a car. Any reason what caused the fires to start? Was it from a collision between the 2 cars? Either way it's still a gnarly thing to come up on and I mean the bad sort of gnarly

Reading through it and watching it a few times at the beginning- the original car was apparently in a wreck, that punctured it's fuel tank. Then a car drove over the fuel draining onto the track (thinking it was coolant- hard to tell at a moments notice like that)- which started the fire.

Yikes.

The other car involved was the "Pink Panther" Spec E30 of Jim Pantas. He posts on here as "Wildhorseracing"

I was not a happy camper that the Army decided I needed to be in Arkansas for a month and causing me to miss that weekend for the second year in a row.

Thankfully both drivers were OK. Jim Pantas is a friend of GRM and a great guy. He's also the director for NASA SE.

Sorry to see the Pink Panther go.....but it's only a car.

better cars than people.

more pics

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shg92VqoSYY&feature=youtu.be

Seatbelt latched with the buckle turned in...

Always better to have the cars totalled out over the drivers, anyday. Good that both made it out safe.

Video states that the driver that couldnt get out had his harness buckle turned around towards his body. Bad call. Thankfully, that other driver was there to help him out. Damn good sportsmanship and courage under fire....literally. Having the best of safety equipment doesnt mean anything if it isnt worn properly. Another example of why balaclavas should be worn too!

Hopefully if the porsche driver continues racing he will learn a few things from that incident. At least it all turned out reasonably well though.

The more I hear about this wreck the more impressed I am that both drivers made it out OK. Jim is certainly a stand up guy for helping out his fellow competator, but I didn't need this incident to tell me that. I have a feeling we are going to be doing a whole lot of emergency drills at NASA-SE in the next year. I am also seriously considering a better fire suppresion system for my track car.

So there was a wreck between two cars, and a third vehicle drove through the fuel (unavoidably) and ignited the first two cars. Damn.

Looks like the driver of the pink BMW fright-braked, locked up the wheels and slid into the stopped Porsche.

I was wondering what to replace the ornamental wrench on the keychain with my 'rollas key with, I think it'll be the belt cutter & glass breaker tool I usually keep in the toolbox.

Did the Porsche choose to stop on track or was the transmission actually locked up and stopped him?

MrJoshua wrote: Did the Porsche choose to stop on track or was the transmission actually locked up and stopped him?

My thoughs too. As soon as he realized he was broken, all focus needed to be on getting somewhere safe, or at least relatively safe. The outside of a high speed turn is not that place.

If the trans did lock up, my apologies.

It looked to me like the trans wouldn't go into gear (could hear the engine free revving). It also seemed that he braked instead of coasting to a full stop. That shut the door on the BMW, he had nowhere else to go.

He was pretty rattled, that's evident from how he stood there next to the burning car trying to disconnect his Cool Shirt stuff. Me, I think I would have run like hell and let the lines get snatched apart. Or (and this is more likely), pooped my undies and whimpered.

From the data readout it looks like the gearbox wasn't transferring any power, then there were two big spikes of deceleration as he almost came to a complete stop, the first was accompanied by what sounds like engine braking.

Curmudgeon wrote: That shut the door on the BMW, he had nowhere else to go.

The pink BMW could have escaped between the Porsche and the white BMW (just after 0:41 in the video) but he was a bit sideways with the brakes locked up at the time.

Yeah, I see that now. I also noticed that I couldn't see brake lights on the 944. That indicates the gearbox was seizing, something he had no control over.

GameboyRMH wrote: Looks like the driver of the pink BMW fright-braked, locked up the wheels and slid into the stopped Porsche.

before passing judgement on an incident that we haven't witnessed for ourselves it's sometimes good to get at least some of the facts .... this from the man involved

Howdy all, We are finally back from what was a long and exciting week at the NASA Championships! Our week started out well, we dyno'ed the Panther, 153 hp / 151 tq! and weighed her - 2735 w/Brandon 2775 w/me in it. Everything was looking good wednesday in practice, we were both getting quicker and the car was running well. I was classed as GTS 2 because I made ~5-6 too much HP to be in GTS 1 with out adding additional weight - which would've penalized Brandon by being too heavy so I simply stayed in GTS 2 knowing I could never be found to be illegal - I was 500 lbs too heavy! LOL!

I heading into Turn 11 right before Thunder Valley when a pack of GTS 3 and GTS 4 cars reached me and were passing me left and right, not a problem since I had numerous IFU and Santa's Toy Fun Run races with heavy traffic! They all passed me and then they all suddenly parted left and right and I realized a car was there - but before I could complete an evasive maneuver I realized - "HOLY S%@!#@T!!!" He's completely stopped!" It was a slide and a glancing blow for the left front fender of the Pink Panther and the right rear of the Porsche 944. We sat there for a few seconds not realizing that his fuel tank had ruptured and fuel was draining quickly downhill across the racetrack. I was literally thinking, "Darn! Brandon worked so hard on this car and I ruined it for him".

In true Hollywood style a giant "WOOSH!" and suddenly all I could see around me was bright yellow with red hues. Years of Comp School training kicked in and I got out as fast as I could. Nevit would be proud of me, the video shows it took me 10 seconds to get out and sprint thru the fire across the track. Even in just those 10 seconds my suit, gloves, shoes, etc were cooked and my helmet and visor were pitch black from the smoke.

For all of you Racers, Time Trialers and advanced HPDE folks - practice getting out of your car when you are fully suited up as often as you can! You will not believe how fast and how hot it can get in a situation like that!

I cannot stress enough that everyone should buy quality safety gear and use ALL of it! I normally wear a balaclava but since I had shaved off my mustache before the event I figured it was one less thing I needed. I have the remnants of some 2nd and 3rd degree burns on my neck, chin, and lost most of my eyebrows*. You can be assured that I will always be fully suited even in the hottest weather from now on!

It turns out it was a pretty hard hit, I bent the steering wheel backwards with my hands, the roof buckled and the "B" pillar separated - but the cage was intact. The left wheel was jammed into the foot-well and the clutch pedal now resides behind the brake pedal.

I will try and post pictures of my equipment and the car later this week, I have won the local Jury duty lottery and have to go serve as a juror but I will try to check in regularly.

FYI - we are already picking out the shell and getting the Pink Panther II ready for racing...

*I also singed my eyelashes which made them keep sticking together when I blinked, Julie jokingly offered her mascara to make them stop that and a makeup pencil to restore my eyebrows

I am sure that if there was a safe way to avoid the 944 Jim would have gladly taken it rather than have a full on collision. I scary concept for me still goes abck to the fact that the fire was not expected and was such a sudden thing. It is a miracle it didn't end much worse.