I have volunteered to be one of the fire safety nazis at the upcoming POC Tribute to Le Mans event. For those of you not familiar with it, this is a full weekend of racing and time-trials, capped off by a 4-hour day/night enduro where the "big boys" duke it out on the Willow Springs big track. Pit crews, tire changes, refueling, semi-pro and pro drivers, TV (Speed Channel) coverage, the whole deal.

I need to get up to speed, so to speak, on race event safety equipment and crew guidelines, and fire safety details in particular, ASAP. I will have various materials provided to me by the club officials, and will be working with a crew of experienced guys who've done this before, but want to be sure I am as prepared as possible before the event.

Obviously, any incident could be tragic. There was apparently a fire-related death in Texas recently where there were NO fire response crews or adequate equipment or personnel at an organization's (not POC or PCA) DE event. As horrific as it sounds, the driver was essentially trapped in his fully-engulfed car for an extended period of time, and subsequently died from the injuries. It is under investigation as to whether the car and driver were properly equipped, but that is a secondary point to the overall venue safety and staffing issues.

Anybody know of good articles, web sites or other info regarding this topic? Is there an SCCA publication that covers this?

TIA,

Chris,

I would exect POC and PCA to have info available, maybe not on the web, but a mailer.
I'd contact them. I'm sure they have similar standards.

Believe it or not, POC does not yet have a fully "officialized" policy on this yet. They do have a bunch of guidelines that we will be starting with, but every year the notch is raised on safety, and Dave Bouzaglou (TRE) is working to establish a more formal safety program this year than what has been utilized in the past. There is an inspector/recorder (me) as well as pit stewards dedicated to each team to observe their operations at all times. This includes practice, qualifying, and the race itself.

You're a bigger man than me for trying to spell Dave's last name.
I always call him Dave from TRE !!

Don't know about POC but PCA does have a procedures manual that go over every detail for club racing. There's a section on Enduro's detailing fire safety when refueling. I think the gas man and the fire man have to be wearing flame proof suits and possibly helmets. My best guess is the different crews will take care of this and all you have to do is stand by and make sure that people are wearing proper clothing. Depending on rules, they may not let anyone work on the car (tire changers, mechanical work, etc.) during refueling.