Fire precautions in motor racing

THE December, 1969, issue of the FPA Journal carried an article on fire precautions in motor racing, illustrated with MOTOR SPORT photographs, including two of the spectacular fires which threatened to destroy the entire Goodwood pits when an Aston Martin caught fire while being refuelled during 1959. The point is made that no Indianapolis 500 had been run without a car going on fire until 1965, the year in which the USAC insisted that fuel tanks were fitted with rubber-bladder inserts. In 1965 a car lost a wheel and ran into the retaining wall and in practice three accidents involved damage in the cars’ fuel tank areas, but no fires resulted. One manufacturer of these bladders inserts a baffle of polyurethane cellular material to reduce leakage should the bladder be ruptured and to reduce the ram effect of fuel movements. In America tougher, less flexible bladders are favoured whereas in this country we rely more on flexibility and elasticity. The article illustrates a Graviner fire and crash protection system applied to a typical racing car. In this, fire detectors operating at 140°C signal to the driver by means of a warning lamp, whereupon he can operate the extinguisher by a push-button. The extinguisher contains 6 lb. of BCF connected by flexible hose to the cockpit and engine areas. Inertia switches release the extinguishing agent automatically in the event of a crash.