Safety Equip At Work: SCARY !

[JonB]

SCARY story with happy ending:

Gary L had a brief off-course on cold tires, LAP ONE, and cracked his oil pan. Oil streams onto the hot exhaust under the car. The AccuSump holds +2 qts and also keeps pumping .

Smoke stream on backstretch became a 2-car-length trail of FIRE.

Gary SPINS in his oil, an exact end-swap 180. The flames engulf the car for 1 sec, showing a fireball and no visible car.

MIRACULOUSLY, this end swap EXTINGUISHES the flames. He keeps the car running, does NOT pop the on-board bottle, and heads for the pits. There, ARCHER RACING has fire bottle ready, but see no flames, and push him behind the wall.

[Note to NSS-NASA: No E-crew? No Pace Car? No flags AT ALL?!]

Bodywork Rear end is, well, T O A S T E D, with all stripes and decals and emblems scorched or melted off. The very definition of 'toasted'. 2 qts oil drain in paddock. Due to firesuit, gloves, helmet, Gary is unscathed, and the car WILL race again. It could have raced the next day in fact, with Archer's crew. The in-car looks FORWARD and only shows a momentary flash as the car reverses.

No one who watched that 5-sec horror will ever forget it. THANK GOD Gary was OK.....he saw the incident on an OR-VCA member's video, and was strangely silent afterwards......

CRACKED PAN ! And we track our cars in T-shirts. SHEESH

 

[Viperrick]

I was standing at turn one and saw gary go sideways up the banking between tuns 1 and 2 of the speedway but never saw flames. Did see a plume of smoke as he drove away but figured it was a totaled side sill or bodywork rubbing on the asphalt or tire. Thanks for clarifying it Jon. I was suprised to see that the Barber guys where getting in our cars in shorts and t-shirts as well. That I didn't expect to see.

 

[Qualitywires.com]

Was that a Blue GTS with white stripes? I saw a car with some serious blisters on the paint in the garage at the track.

 

[Birvini]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by ab:
Was that a Blue GTS with white stripes? I saw a car with some serious blisters on the paint in the garage at the track.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>


Ab, I was in a different group than you. On Friday, I saw one blue & white pull into the pit area with billowing white smoke. Same thing happened Sunday with another blue and white. I have a picture of one of them, but can't figure out how to post it!!!

T shirts don't seem like the smart way to go on the track!!!