Racing Fire-Suppression System - Cease Fire

Piece by piece, stock car racing is slowly adopting safety requirements long since common in other forms of motorsports.Open-face helmets are becoming a rarity. Almost all drivers wear at least some sort of fire-resistant driving uniform. Head-and-neck restraints are showing up on tracks where, a decade ago, drivers would have scoffed at the notion of wearing such a device. Fuel cells are required in all but the most basic classes, and most of America's short tracks now require race cars to carry a fire extinguisher.

Few tracks, however, specify what type of extinguisher meets the rules, so many drivers belt in feeling they have a level of protection that really doesn't exist.

There are really only about three types of fire extinguishers appropriate for a race car. Each has a unique advantage and disadvantage.

Which one's best?

That all depends," says Jean Genibrel, who owns Emergency Suppression Systems, which markets the Firecharger. "What kind of fire are you planning to have?"

A handheld extinguisher is cheap. You can pick one up at most hardware stores for under $20. That's the good part.

If you need it, though, you have to locate the fire bottle, unsnap it from its bracket, pull the pin, and aim it at the base of the blaze. That assumes you can scramble out of your seat, haul your body out the window, remember to grab the bottle on your way out, and after all that, there is still enough left of your car to bother saving.

It also assumes the bracket didn't break when you smacked the wall, turning your fire extinguisher into an unguided missile rattling around inside your car, bouncing off the rollcage and your helmet.

That leaves on-board fire systems.

They are much more expensive than the $20 handheld dry chemical extinguisher. That's the bad part. But they can be mounted almost anywhere in the car, so you don't have to worry about whether or not you can find it if you need it.

Properly installed, they can be triggered by pulling or pushing a handle on the dashboard. That handle also can be located someplace where it will be within easy reach of a rescue worker, just in case the driver is in no condition to activate it.

Most extinguishers come with one or two decals-usually an "E" inside a red circle-that a driver can stick on the fender near the system's trigger to let rescue workers know where to find the handle.

Plumbing for an on-board system allows the fire bottle to be discharged remotely into areas most likely to have a fire. That means you don't have to pop open the hood to fight an engine fire or lift the trunk lid for a blaze back by the fuel cell.

"We look at where you are most likely to have a fire," says Greg Walters, who builds cars and races in the Pacific Coast Xtreme Dirt Car series. To us, that means a nozzle in the trunk area, pointed back toward the fuel cell, and another one in the engine bay, facing toward the carburetor. We try to fight the fire at its source. That's usually fuel, so we concentrate on those areas."

A nozzle also can be located in the driver compartment to prevent a blaze from spreading to the cockpit.

"When we first began requiring fire systems, a lot of drivers complained-but drivers complain about everything. It's just the nature of the beast," Walters says. "We finally said, 'It's the rule, and if you want to race with us, you have to comply.'

"The other issue is that most national series require an on-board system, so anyone who wanted to race anywhere else was probably going to have to buy and install one. And it is a lot easier to install it in the shop some afternoon, when you can do it right, rather than try to plumb it up inside the race car in the pits, because you can't go through tech inspection without it."

There are two common types of on-board systems. Again, each has its advantage and disadvantage. Both can be purchased from many of the parts suppliers that advertise in Stock Car Racing.

The most common on-board fire system uses a halon derivative or similar type of gas that starves the flame of oxygen.

Phoenix Fire Suppression is among the most common halon-type systems and is found in vehicles ranging from race cars to aircraft cockpits.

The advantage of the Phoenix system is that the gas leaves no residue. Once the fire is extinguished and the air clears, the gas is gone. All you have to do is repair the fire damage and go back to racing.

"It's a great system because there's virtually no clean-up time," says Richard Smith, who recently sold Phoenix to Stroud Racing but has been retained as its spokesman.

The heart of the Phoenix system is an aluminum bottle containing 5 pounds of gas, pressurized to just under 200 psi.

A trigger mechanism is mounted on the end of the bottle, which, when activated, feeds the gas though aluminum tubing to as many as three discharge nozzles.

The downside of the halon systems is the empty bottles have to be returned to Phoenix (or to some other company) to be replaced. That means either buying a backup bottle to take to the track, or perhaps racing without a functioning system until the replacement arrives.

"Probably the biggest advantage to the system is the relative cost and pain compared to being treated for burns," says Smith. "I guarantee that if you told a racer he could get 2 more horsepower for the same cost of a fire system, he'd find a way to come up with the money.

"About the only way to get racers to install a system is to require it. For racers, that's all that seems to really work. If they've got to have it before they get to race, they'll find a way to do it. They'll complain, but they'll do it, and if they need it, they'll be glad they have it."