ITC fire Sebring

[Florida Fiesta]

Yes, my Fiesta did catch fire during Sat qualifying on the back straight. A broken float pumped fuel out and it ignited. Unfortunatly my fire bottle (AutoPro) was empty even though it had never been used and read "Full". Luckily a guy in the paddock threw a hand held bottle over the fence to me. The car had almost no damage and I was ready for the race in a couple hours.

Bill McCoin

[Russ Myers]

I set a Fiesta on fire at Kershaw. Broke the oil pressure gauge line, which happens to be right above the exaust pipe. no real damage but the colt driver behind me at the time got quite a show.

Russ

[quadzjr]

I know I was impressed.. When I saw him on grid later.. on the pole.. I had to get the story. Good job! like I mentioned I saw this excat same thing happen on a prod car at CMP labor day weekend.

[TomL]

Bill - A question on the non-operating fire system. Did you confirm that the bottle was actually empty? If I recall correctly, the AutoPro systems are halon. If so, a "full" reading on the gauge should indicate that the bottle actually had halon (unless the gauge itself was defective). If the system just didn't release halon when you pulled/pushed the button, it could be that, even though the bottle was full, the actuator failed to puncture the rupture disc on the bottle. My local fire system company says that this happens more often than it should. Apparently, sometimes that end of the actuator isn't sharp enough to puncture the disc, or the plunger gets dirty and doesn't move at all.

I had the latter happen myself - and it saved me a recharge. I was fixing a friend's car when I found he had left his safety pin out and accidentally pulled the release. But nothing had happened. The bottle was still full because the actuator had gotten dirty enough that the spring-loaded plunger didn't move. When I disassembled, cleaned and re-lubed the actuator, it worked okay. Better I found the problem that way than having it fail when it was needed.

[Florida Fiesta]

I'm almost certain the bottle is empty even though the gauge is still in the green area. Right now the bottle weighs ~4 lbs - Seems like it should weigh around 10lbs if it has 5lbs of stuff in it.

I'm not sure what chemical is even suppose to be in it - the decal says FM100. So where did all the stuff go? I've never used it.

[TomL]

I think a 5lb. system should have a full bottle weight of 7-9 pounds, so if yours only weights 4 pounds, it is missing most or all of its contents. I haven't seen an FM100 system for a long time - and there's a reason. They were specifically outlawed in the GCR as of 1/1/97. I remember because my buddy I mentioned earlier had to replace his with halon back then. It's been so long ago, the prohibition was left out of the latest revised fire system rules. Makes me wonder how it has passed annual tech over the last 13 years.

[Florida Fiesta]

Thanks for your research Tom. I'm going to write something up for our regions newsletter.

Bill McCoin