In light of the fiery crash at nationals I think we should address safety in a manner that exceeds the NASA basic requirements. I have two ideas. First require that dashboards be made of fire resistant or fireproof material. This may be as simple as removing the plastic from the current stock dashboard. I saw a picture in the Dashboard discussion that shows it can be accomplished. I think we should also require that replacement parts on the exterior that are metal as stock must be metal replacement. As an example nothing fiberglass. We need to minimize all flammable material in the cockpit. Finally we should require at a minimum a four nozzle fire system such at the ESS 5 Liter AFFF SFI Fire System which costs $510. While I know everyone wants low cost racing we should not be promoting cheap racing or unsafe racing. By requiring a higher level of safety we can be a leader in the NASA system. This topic was designed to get other suggestions as to how we can increase the safety of our cars.

Good ideas Tom, though I believe that alot on944 guys would balk at the $510 price. It is less than we pay for a set of tires and it is for safety.

One of my pet peaves with all racing organizations is the lack of tech on seat mounting. I feel that there should be a requirement for seat mounting that is spelled out better than what is currently being used. If you look at what Nascar requires even at some of the lower divisions you will see what I am talking about. Especially for car that are faster than ours, we are on the slow end of the spectrum.

I have seen lots of cheap aluminum seats bolted directly to the floor, heck I have even done this myself.
It isgreat that NASA requires a interior net and a window net, I feel that it does need to define seat mounting better.

Thanks for getting this started Tom, hopefully we can get a meaningful dialoge out of this and maybe get a few more racers to look closely at their personal safety.

Tom. My day job is a family doc, so this topic is very important.

I looked at the 944 quite a bit after the incident
The relavent video his here:
Lets start with going through the incident itself at Mid-O. There are a lot of lessons from this.

1. Driver belts himself in with the latch reversed, facing his body, and is unaware of this.
2. 944 has a mechanical failure coming over the top of a blind curve.
3. Driver actively stops the car on track, in an area of poor visibility.
4. Car receives a rear cornering blow from an E30 BMW
5. With the rear bumper structure removed, and replaced with fiberglass (GTS car), the E30 penetrates deeply into the sheet metal passenger side rear structure of the car, and compromising the tank in the fuel pump area. It is unclear to me wether the tank itself ruptured, or the fuel lines/pump were broken, but a massive fuel spill ensues. The rumors that the transmission poked a hole in the tank do not look true to me. The transmission looked like it was in place, and it would have to move up to impact the tank.
6. Fuel ignites, and the E30 driver suffers burns in areas left uncovered w/o a balaclava. The bulkhead over the tank of the 944 remains intact, and the driver area of the 944, and it's driver, do not burn (but are filled with smoke).
7. The driver of the 944 cannot undo his safety belts, and radios his crew he can't get out. E30 driver rus over, figures out the issue, and releases harness, allowing 944 driver to get out.
8. 944 driver stands next to burning car, unhooking his his cool suit.
9. E30 driver turns off master power of 944, which is still pumping fuel into the fire.

The first big lesson here is the need for preparation, and practice. When things go bad, everything has to be automatic, because reasoning/figuring things out doesn't happen well in an emergency situation. Drivers need to practice the whole exit strategy including the master switch, and (pretending to) activate the fire system, and bailing out of the car, through both sides. Series directors can have tech put their drivers through emergency evacuation drills. Also, be aware of how you buckle in. Cool suit hoses will break away at the connections - just get away from the car!

The second, is thinking through putting your car in a safe spot when you have a mechanical. Unless your car is seriously on fire at that point and you have to stop NOW, use momentum to roll off track, and out of the trajectory of other race cars (you may have laid down fluids on the track). This can't always be done, but should be to the extent you can.

The last is preparing you & your car well.
-Make sure the fuel sender hole is well covered and sealed. The integrity of the bulkhead over the tank gave the 944 driver a lot of time to get out.
-Don't compromise the structure of your car. Spec rules take of this pretty well. If you cut the spare tire well out, though, be careful! If you decide to put a fuel cell in, do it in such a way that a solid bulkhead remains. This is hard to do in our cars. I've seen a custom fuel cell that fits in the stock location (not cheap, though).
-Invest in a good fire system. Take a weekend off racing if you need to pay for this. Should we mandate this? Maybe. Probably not this year, but I strongly encourage all to do it. Burns suck, for a long time. Apex gives us a 12% discount on fire systems.
-Wear a balaclava! EVERY TIME!

One other note - the E30 driver suffered ankle injuries from footwell intrusion. He did not have foot bars in his cage. We made a rules change to allow this a few years back. It's not hard or very expensive to put them is. Recovering from ankle injuries is both hard, and expensive!

Charlie - good point on the seat mounting. Hanksville has a nice solution to stronger seat mounting. I am open to practical, cost effective solutions in how we can improve safety, by rule if need be. Again, this probably needs more time than we have this year, but it's not too early to get started.

If you guys see any current rule that gets in the way of safety - let me know, and we'll deal with that ASAP.

Eric three easy times come to mind out of your detailed breakdown of the situation at nationals.
1. Require the fire safety system by 2014. As Charlie said less than the cost of one set of tire, one weekend of racing as you state and we can get a discount, that we may be able to get a larger discount if we did a bike purchase. I still say that 2013 is a doable time frame. Safety is first in my mind the comes good clean, close fun racing.

2. 2013 944 Spec requires all drivers to wear balaclava. This is a very cheap cost. I also notice at some races drivers with no socks. We need to stress proper safety clothing and if one does not have it or use it in the race DQ no warning.

3. Require the shut off switch to be in a standard location such as at upper left hand corner of the dash by the driver door. I think we could have this accomplished for 2013.

While this will not eliminate bad situations it would help to minimize the danger.

Many (most?) have their seat still mounted on the factory sliding rails. While I have never been willing to do that, at what point do the rules "require" such things? Eric, in looking at the fire video, it does not appear to me that a fire system would have put that fire out or kept it from re-igniting short of having a large system just for the gas tank area. How do you see that? I do not even have one of my nozzles back there. I have three pointing to my body and two (one on each side of the fuel rail) in the engine bay.

Perhaps another solution is sticky threads that address significant safety issues with detailed suggestions, details, pictures, materials, sources,etc. to educate our group about these issues. If peer pressure helps, lets encourage folks to pay attention to their own personal safety and the safety of other racers around them.

I recognize that this is a delicate, subjective topic. Until NASA mandated HANS devices, most did not use them in spite of the evidence to the contrary. I witnessed one of the Az. 944 guys crack two neck vertebra from a wreck. He was not wearing one. NASA did the right thing with this one, IMO. Of course, any safety item that I like "should be required" and those that I don't "should not". Herein is the problem. It is subjective.

Ron posted that he is in the process of adding foot bars and a proper seat mount. It only took him this long to do it but HE decided to do it and good for him. He just earned several beers at next weekends Sonoma race from the Big Dog. Education, perhaps should be the direction here. Education and facilitating the ease of doing these "improvements" can help while leaving our series rules alone. If Hanksville has a solution, lets put it into the Car Build thread with enough discussion on why it matters. Put in other ways for the DIY guys so they can do it without having to figure out a solution on their own.

I applaud the notion of looking at our rule set to find places where they inhibit safety such as the old rule that seemed to prohibit foot well bars. Heck, I did them from day one in spite of the risk of being DQed because of them. In fact, I did get some negative comments about them but, in the end, no one protested them at an event.

Here is one to think about. Right now, our cage rules prohibit tieing the bottom door bar to the side rail (too many points of contact). Would it strengthen our cages if we did put several bars down onto the side rail? this could help to stop intrusion into the drivers side by increasing the crush resistance, similar to the foot well bars. If, somehow, it was claimed that it stiffens the chassis, SO WHAT? It is simple and cheep to do or have done. If it can increase driver safety, that trumps anything else, IMO. These are the kinds of ideas, thanks to Tom, that we should be discussing.

My personal safety, and that of my friends on the track, is much more important than where I finish a race or a season.

My two cents on an important topic.