Nice big pretty picture, no? We’ve always been a fan of Scotty’s sweet Beast chassis even before we got to know and love him from writing all of the safety articles that grace this website. Speaking of which, when Scotty’s articles grace our website, our traffic generally doubles. At least.

So what does Scotty enjoy more than going fast and turning left in that righteous ride up above? Hearing from you guys! The last time we put the call out for more topics, we got some really good ones and Scotty wrote some humdinger articles.

So once again we’re passing the hat asking you our loyal readers, what kind of topics would you like to see Scotty write about?

• Practicality of soft walls at short tracks?
• How safe is the food at my track? Alright, maybe not that one…
• What should we keep in the trailer in case of an emergency?

You get the picture. So feel free to drop your suggestions in the comments section of this article, fill out our form or even e-mail Scotty directly at scotty67hotty@yahoo.com

Thanks in advance!

Welcome back to Scotty’s Safety Scoop for this week’s safety tip.  I really enjoyed writing last week’s article about roll cage safety nets.  I put a lot of work into that article and felt it came out well, so I hope you got as much out of reading it as I did writing it.  It also felt great answering the question of a fellow racer (Ryan), and hopefully clearing up any safety reasons why they are used.  I have a few questions left on my list to answer, so please send in some more, they have been awesome.

This week’s question revolved around fire suppression systems, and why they aren’t used in sprint cars or midgets.  It is hard to believe in this day and age of technology that sprint cars and midgets are about the only racing type car that doesn’t require an on-board fire suppression system.  NASCAR, late models, and even the road warriors at your local short track have a rule about the size and placement for a fire system of some kind.  Most classes in the Florida short track system require at least a five pound fire extinguisher mounted in the racecar.  To this day there is no sprint car or midget sanctioning body to mandate a fire suppression system of any kind.  I find this odd because, in no other class is the fuel cell mounted so close to the driver and more easily damaged than on a sprint car.  It’s kind of creepy knowing there is 30 gallons of dynamite mounted six inches behind your head.

One reason why sprints and midgets don’t have fire systems is because the systems are bulky.  The current systems available are designed for stockcars, which have plenty of space available to accommodate most fire systems.  A sprint car just doesn’t have the room for a bulky fire bottle in the driver’s compartment.  In a sprint car or even a midget, there is just no place to mount a twelve inch long by six inch diameter bottle safely.  These cars have been stream-lined over the years to only carry the essentials to make them fast.

But the main reason is the fact that sprint car drivers and owners are some of the most hard-headed racers you’ll ever meet.  Simply because they didn’t use them back in “The Day,” they don’t use them today.  Thirty years ago nobody used them, so to these people, “why would we need them today?”  Sprint car and midget drivers seem to be the last group of racers to adopt any of the new safety equipment currently available simply on tradition.  Another concern to sprint car people is the weight of the system.  Most people are so worried about weight they don’t feel it is worth the five pounds to carry a fire system in the car.  Sprint car and midget owners spend a lot of money getting these things light, so they feel putting a fire system on the car would negate all the work they’ve done to lighten the car.  I personally feel it is worth a little bit of weight to help insure the huge investment we have in these cars.  A fire system can easily make what would have been a total loss to fire into simply a day’s worth of clean-up.

The good news is there are people out there working on this problem.  Florida sprint car’s own Don Rehm has been working on a system for a while that is designed for sprints and midgets primarily.  If this name sounds familiar he is the President of the CFSS and the TGSS.  He is also the former President of the TBARA.  He is also a former driver, who has seen many accidents involving fires which have left many drivers injured and racecars destroyed.

Don has come up with a system that uses a Halon gas to help extinguish about 50 cubic feet of area, in a system that is merely the size of two soda cans standing on end.  This makes it easy to mount in the car without getting in the driver’s way.  You may have seen this system already on Keith Butler’s car or Dave Slawiak’s ride.

Read More→