Bright - "Dedicated Fire and Safety Crews"

[peckstar]

maybe we are talking semantics of the word chatters (maybe i mean extigusihing system) that is mounted on the floor in the back of the car

[Senna05]

Originally Posted by peckstar

just quoting Karl here "my gloves had melted to my hands"

also this"the suede seat had melted to my suit, and my suit had melted to the seat belts"

he a;so added removing the window net proved quite difficult (interesting with them now being more to the centre, remembering why they were introduced in the first place)

he just ran and all his piping (cool suit water fans radio) ripped and tore apart

Didn't BJR have issues with their racesuits and paraphernalia made by Oakley in the first rounds of last year? Didn't meet FIA flame retarding standards?

[GTRMagic]

Damaged racesuit was an OMP

[coln72]

Personally, I feel that the powers to be need to have a serious look at why the rear firewall failed......

[oz_watcher]

Originally Posted by Big_Trev

Was there an issue with the quality of Reindler's gloves, given the amout of burns to his fingers? I understand why his face was burnt, but I am suprised by the hand damage

I'll repost part of my prior post:

Originally Posted by oz_watcher

Need to remember the "layers" only work if there is a gap between them. Stops the inner layer transferring the same temperature being exposed to the outer one. In the case of gloves, boots and balaclavas , there is little to no air gap between the layers, so the heat transfer hits the skin even if the direct flame didn't. Nomex helps survive the flame, but the air gap helps survive the heat.

Jamie Whincup posted on Facebook a pic of Karl's hands which show excess heat skin damage, not burns (eg. no direct flame damage), so his equipment did what it is meant to do. On Facebook a V8 photographer has also posted pics of two fire marshalls sitting on the pit wall during the initial whole thing, and handing one of the pit crew guys their extinguisher.....


Regarding "fire bombs", bomb location is inside cockpit, with tubing connecting anywhere from 4 to 6 nozzles (for an off-shelf FIA unit) split between engine and cockpit. Whilst auto triggers exist (heat or impact), in practice I'd be hesitant to use in case of accidentally failure. Also CAMS/FIA rules only mandate triggering by driver/marshall action.

[St00ge]

Originally Posted by coln72

Personally, I feel that the powers to be need to have a serious look at why the rear firewall failed......

Because a 1350kg car hit the rear of a stationary car @ 150km/h and popped part of the firewall open is my personal guess...

[davester]

The rear of a V8 Supercar is incredibly vunerable as there is NO cage extension beyond the rear cabin firewall. The rear of the car is basically sacrificial (there are merely two light rails with light cross beams) so that if it does get hit, in most instances it will crush, absorbing the impact enough to protect the cage...if the cage takes impact it will likely be damaged, often rendering the shell a write-off.

I felt this accident was handled well by all involved, and both drivers were lucky they did not suffer further hits by other cars which could have complicated or hindered their egress.

Best defence against this happening again is "rolling starts".

[Purist]

I've seen enough failed starts and restarts in NASCAR and Indycar to know that rolling starts guarantee NOTHING.

The rear bulkhead clearly NEEDS to be better protected. Also, preventing penetration/failure of the fuel cell should be top priority after protecting the driver directly. Part of the Group C sportscar regulations REQUIRED substantial protection of the fuel cell, not just the driver, and those rules were drawn up 30 years ago.

Thankfully, we haven't seen too many recent incidents of V8s going backwards into the hard barriers at high speed.

[BJAY]

With the discussion on the amount of time it took to put the fire out, imagine if this had happened during race. No team members to jump the pitwall, no chase vehicle to get there within 10-15sec. Or if Karl was knocked out, or the car turned over.

[Axeman444]

Originally Posted by BJAY

With the discussion on the amount of time it took to put the fire out, imagine if this had happened during race. No team members to jump the pitwall, no chase vehicle to get there within 10-15sec. Or if Karl was knocked out, or the car turned over.

all the more reason not to allow them to race back to the start finish line... but don't tell Peckstar that...

[peckstar]

that comment adds nothing to the discusion axeman.

did you notice what happened when the car caught fire, exactaly what i have always said will happen. and exactaly the opposite of what the so called experts said would happen (including you apparantly). they red flagged the race and the cars did not race back to the pits, glad im not the expert

[PVDA]

Originally Posted by peckstar

just quoting Karl here "my gloves had melted to my hands"

also this"the suede seat had melted to my suit, and my suit had melted to the seat belts"

Funnily enough the nomex suits are designed to scorch and "melt" to an extent, it's the air gap between the layers that protects the driver as the scorching assists in the flame retardant properties.

Originally Posted by Chatters

Considering the firebomb is in the engine bay of the car would that have even helped?

The "bomb" might be in the passenger compartment but the nozzles plumbed to it are usually in the engine bay where the vast majority of fires seem to be located.

Originally Posted by oz_watcher

On Facebook a V8 photographer has also posted pics of two fire marshalls sitting on the pit wall during the initial whole thing, and handing one of the pit crew guys their extinguisher.....

The only photo's and vision I've seen are of team members jumping the wall and handing extinguishers over but with the number of photo's and vision of this on line I might not have stumbled across the pic you are referring to yet.

With so many people in fire suits running around even someone like myself who knows who is who can sometimes struggle to workout if it's a marshal or crew member in some photo's.


Another interesting item is the performance of the different types of extinguishers and I'm not just talking Dry Chem vs Foam either but the differing performance of dry chem extinguishers from different manufacturers.

[ascarracinguk]

always make me laugh these types of threads...start out as a good post asking a genuine question....end up as people complaining about marshals and pointing out all their mistakes, and yet theyre usually the ones that have never marshalled a day in their lives......always prepared to complain, never prepared to help out!....marshals are all ordinary people who give up their spare time for nothing in return so that they can give something back to the sport they love, only to be blasted by armchair enthusiats....sorry rant over...

[peckstar]

Originally Posted by ascarracinguk

always make me laugh these types of threads...start out as a good post asking a genuine question....end up as people complaining about marshals and pointing out all their mistakes, and yet theyre usually the ones that have never marshalled a day in their lives......always prepared to complain, never prepared to help out!....marshals are all ordinary people who give up their spare time for nothing in return so that they can give something back to the sport they love, only to be blasted by armchair enthusiats....sorry rant over...

while you may be right in a general sense, wasnt the whole point of the thread that a driver complained that we needed a more professional fire crew and that the part timers that currently do it are not good enough

[ascarracinguk]

Originally Posted by peckstar

while you may be right in a general sense, wasnt the whole point of the thread that a driver complained that we needed a more professional fire crew and that the part timers that currently do it are not good enough

maybe the driver needs to look at the videos and suggest how he thinks a fire of that size can be put out in less than 28 seconds.....im all for learning and improving, if your not doing so theres something wrong, however i cant see how the fire could have been put out quicker than it was....if youve got any suggestions then theyd be welcome at the next marshals training day im sure!....i think to say that part timers.....or VOLENTEERS as they are usually known arent good enough is a slap in the face to be honest....they give up their time week in week out for the sport they love, get nothing in return and do the best job they can. could a full time crew do a better job? possibly, but without knowing what training those marshals have had, it would be incredibly unfair to comment on whether a full time crew could do a better job or not!

[peckstar]

but havent you just raised the point, they are volunteers, Bright is saying that maybe we need a dedicated fire team which would not be volunteers (or if they were would have a higher level of funding and training) thats not as bad thing in itself, but would come at a cost, who would fund it?.

Ive seen nothing to suggest the fire crew could have done a better job, but as PVDA pointed out, there was a difference in fire extinguishers, a permanent fire crew might have worked this out in practice and not in real life, the firebombs/ extinguisher system (which also extinguish inside the car as per the FIA regulations) did not seem to have been used, would a permanent squad have taken better advantage of this because iof more practice or would they have trained drivers to better use it.

the good thing is that no one was badly hurt and i am sure there are many lessons and improvments that can be made from this experience

[ascarracinguk]

in my experience in the uk, marshals are given a good level of fire training, several sessions are reun throughout the year if you feel the need to attend, we all know what bottles to use on what types of fires. i would expect, and im sure its the case that it is the same with aussie marshals. the marshal appears to be using dry powder which is the correct bottle to use, and as you pointed out te fire bomb extinguisher did not go off......for one simple reason, you have to pull the lever on the car.....with the amount of flames around the car getting to the lever is very dangerous, so the safer and quicker option in the end is to put the fire out with normal extinguishers......the marshal did the correct thing.....the car is a piece of metal...dont put your own life at risk trying to save it!

[Trevor]

Originally Posted by peckstar

would a permanent squad have taken better advantage of this because iof more practice or would they have trained drivers to better use it.

as a former volunteer emergency service worker for road accident rescue (RAR), as a former accreditation officer for RAR, as a portable fire extinguisher trainer and as a former race track safety team member I can tell you that there is no way known I would run through those flames and set the fire bomb off.

I reckon those there on Sunday did a fantastic job, there is always going to be the "20/20 hind-sighters" who will always believe that things can be done better, but as PVDA rightly pointed out, the response time was remarkable.

As for the Team members jumping over the fence - who ****ing cares, from what I saw they all had the appropriate apparel on, they had an extinguisher in their hand, and I am guessing that they have had training on how to use it.

It is about saving some-bodies life.

Some might remember the Volkswagen that caught on fire heading up Mt Panorama and the fire supression that took place then, if you want something to whinge about go looking for the video of that.

[Axeman444]

Originally Posted by peckstar

that comment adds nothing to the discusion axeman.

did you notice what happened when the car caught fire, exactaly what i have always said will happen. and exactaly the opposite of what the so called experts said would happen (including you apparantly). they red flagged the race and the cars did not race back to the pits, glad im not the expert

i responded to someone else's post, so yes it does add, just not in your book.

i'm no expert on this subject, but an experienced observer, who can bring expertise from other areas that is applicable to this conversation. This includes risk analysis and avoidance. There are also others on this forum who I would consider experts, and my opinion on this subject is the same as theirs.

However, your opinion on this matter has been done to death so i won't go on about it. What does surprise me though, is this opinion of yours seems to be completely against this statement:

Originally Posted by peckstar

the good thing is that no one was badly hurt and i am sure there are many lessons and improvments that can be made from this experience

how is stopping drivers racing back to a start line in circumstances other than this one not a potential safety improvement? I'll leave you to ponder that one for another time in another thread...

[peckstar]

remind me again axeman, why didnt the cars race back to the finish line in this situation? Is it called a red flag

an option that is available at any time during a race.

the red flag stops cars racing back to the pit lane

[rich07]

Originally Posted by porsche91722

At least the incident at Barbagallo yesterday was handled better than this utter chaos.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oLVx...eature=related

OMG. Ive seen that accident many times but not from that angle, thanks for posting that up, that Aston Martin mechanic (the dude in black) is an absolute hero.

[PVDA]

Originally Posted by peckstar

but havent you just raised the point, they are volunteers, Bright is saying that maybe we need a dedicated fire team which would not be volunteers (or if they were would have a higher level of funding and training) thats not as bad thing in itself, but would come at a cost, who would fund it?.

I think you'll find a permanent Safety Team would still be volunteers but thier travel costs would be covered.

I'm doing most rounds of the MX Nationals this year and I'm not paid but my travel and accomodation costs are being covered as a part of the deal travellling around Australia.

When it comes to training there's no big difference between professional or volunteer fire fighters and the same would apply to motorsport marshals. The one advantage is the series team would get to know the cars and drivers better than marshals who would only see the series once or twice a year.

One advantage of a permanent Safety Team is the series drivers would get to know them through handling of incidents and involvements at driver briefings.

I'm pretty sure the drivers would start to respect yellow flags more as the permanent Safety Team members would certainly let them know in no uncertain terms that they aren't happy with the way they're treated with the cars not slowing down enough.


While I think of it the Victoria Fire & Rescue Squad holds an annual training day and invites various other marshals groups (like the Vic Flag Team) to participate, I'm sure they'd be only too happy for several of the Melbourne based V8 drivers to attend to learn more about that side of our sport.

[Axeman444]

Originally Posted by BJAY

With the discussion on the amount of time it took to put the fire out, imagine if this had happened during race. No team members to jump the pitwall, no chase vehicle to get there within 10-15sec. Or if Karl was knocked out, or the car turned over.

my bold modification for your highlighting...

Originally Posted by Axeman444

all the more reason not to allow them to race back to the start finish line... but don't tell Peckstar that...

Originally Posted by peckstar

remind me again axeman, why didnt the cars race back to the finish line in this situation? Is it called a red flag

context Peckstar, context.

[peckstar]

correct im in context, even in a race (say lap 2) if that incident had have happened there would have been a red flag, thus no need to race back to the flag, thus your comment is irrelevant

example less than ten seconds from incident to red flag

[Trevor]

With all the talk about Dr Carl Le on the weekend, just who are these Doctors? I hear a rumour one is just a GP, whilst they may be good at that, is he/she experienced enough to deal with the trauma that is essentially a road crash / road accident trauma site?