Yet another American stock/dirt track car bursting into flames upon a heavy rear impact, normally it seems to be the filler neck that breaks, they really need to do something about that IMO.
I've also noticed American race events seem to take a rather lassie fair approach to fire safety, there are lots of videos on youtube of dirt track and even drag cars ending up in flames and there simply being no means to put them out and a bunch of guys standing round in jeans with hand held fire extinguishers wondering what to do. Thankfully in contrast in the UK all our club meetings have a dedicated fire fast response vehicle with a huge tank of foam to put out a big blaze. It seems to me just stupid to try and run a motor racing event without the facilities to put out a fire. The risk doesn't seem real until you don't get a lucky escape story the complete inability to put a fire out seems as much a worrying danger in a paddock as it does on the track. Thankfully we get very quick response both on and off track (I've had to raise the alarm twice), it's never nice but at least you've got that comfort margin.
I dont know about you but they dont seem to be "standing around doing nothing" while Michael Waltrip's car caught fire. This just happen today.
NASCAR also has extensive safety meetings as well. I really dont know what series you claim to watch on youtube. but the smaller the series the more unorganized they are. Dont compare NASCAR to a bunch of small unorganized dirt series that no one really cares about. I dont see how NASCAR safety officials or ARCA or INDY for that matter are so inferior to your "european" officials.
But anyway, yeah... the IRL, CCWS, and (I think) NASCAR all have travelling safety crews at this point that go wherever the series go and provide really, really quick response to any accident. They're just as good as (perhaps better than) some of the track crews at F1 events.
The only part of my comment directed at NASCAR was the fact they seem to have a pretty badly designed fuel tank.
The rest of the comment was directed towards lower level US motorsports as a fairly general observation. In the higher level motorsports the safety is obviously very good and pretty much equivalent to FIA standards. Here are a few examples from lower level US motorsport randomly selected from youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3dbTn8qEZg
Drag racing, fairly slow response, seemingly nothing but handheld extinguishers to fight a big fire, wouldn't have stood much of a chance if he couldn't get himself out the car before anyone arrived.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v ... ;mode=related&search=
Car catches fire from relatively light roll, several vehicles turn up but no one has any substantial fire fighting equipment and they end up turning the car over whilst still burning with a digger to stop the fuel tank fueling the fire before putting it out. That simply wouldn't happen in the UK, even at club meetings that kind of fire would be out very quickly with a full tank of foam.
Those are just a quick selection, there are lots around. The one thing they've all got in common is there wouldn't be much chance if the drivers didn't get out under their own power and either there was no equipment to put the fire out or it arrived late.
While I don't agree with your trolling with the 'rednecks in jeans' comments, I do agree that there were some pretty ordinary response times in those videos. Especially the drag racing ones. There's no excuse in such a small venue.
It wasn't really meant to come across as a bashing comment towards US low level motorsport. Even at my local banger racing track where they race everyday production cars on pump fuel rather than high power big engined cars on racing fuel which have a much higher chance of going up in flames they always have a fire engine and ambulance on stand by, the racing may be simple, cheap and low tech but the response time is pretty much instant and the rescue equipment is completely over the top, which is surely better than not having it when you need it.
As for the drag racing it amazes me what these rescue trucks are doing, often they seem to be given instructions over the public address system and the fire vehicles take considerably longer to arrive than they do at race circuits in the UK. In the end of the day it's a 1/4 mile straight piece of tarmac if you have a fire truck at either end there is no way it can take you more than 15 seconds, I remember watching a clip of a European drag bike crash with an ambulance on the scene before the bike had come to a stop. If you watch onboards from Santa Pod you'll see they have an airport style foam dispensing fire engine and fully suited fire marshals waiting to spray anything that moves with foam at the end of the run, most of the US drag onboards feature a pickup truck armed with handheld extinguishers and guys without protective clothing, which simply can't put out a big fire.
I find Drifting and Drag racing pointless and stupid IMO but unlike you people, I'm actually open minded enough to admit that there's some of form of excitement that's eluded me and captured others. I dont go around trolling forums just because I dont find a specific motorsport "exciting".
Stock car racing is no excepting. All this comes is arrogance and a superiority complex. Racing's racing buddy
I'm actually have enough class to KEEP MY MOUTH SHUT about motorsport that i find boring (drifting and drag) and look at it with a mindful eye.
