Mark Petronis - How to survive a 1600 degree car fire

Hey folks,

This video has been passed around quite a bit on Facebook since it was uploaded on Friday, but since motorsport safety is a topic near and dear to my heart I wanted to share it here too.  Lots of folks know I was nearly killed in a racing incident in May of last year. This 35 minute documentary is an account of everything that happened that day and the following 8 months of my life.  We go into detail about the accident, how I managed to survive, the injuries, the recovery, and the future.  If you spend anytime on a race track of any kind I believe it's worth the watch and I encourage you all to take your safety as seriously as you can.  Please feel free to share it with our friends and family in the racing community.

https://youtu.be/DUS5tYBLycc

In reply to AMT Motorsport :

Thank you for sharing your story Mark. Reminds me I've been going to look into moving the pull controls for my fire systems during the current rebuild of my car, and I'll also look into whether I can upgrade to automatic activation also as well.

Great thing you survived to tell the story and promote vehicle / fire safety. 

Also, great that you credited those who helped you - strangers and friends alike.

It is good to have great friends.

Be well and stay well.

I got halfway through the video and started looking at fire suppression systems. What an incredible story

I'd like to ask if there's anything you think could have been done better to keep the burning fuel out of the interior of the car?

I don't know if the car had a stock fuel system or a fuel cell install, and I've seen some pretty sketchy fuel cell installs.

I gotta ask, Who put you next to a fireplace to narrate it? Just seems like there would be many other settings that would be better optics. 

I totally appreciate that he talked about the mental health aspect of this. This is a pretty selfish sport and families give up so much as it is.

Things I got out of this video that we as competitors can control.

1. "If you don't go for it you stop being a racer" for an amateur driver this is really ill advised. Note I'm not criticising this particular incident but just these types of incidents. That pass could have waited 2-3 seconds and none of this would have ever happened.

2. Even when you are super super careful things happen so yes yes and yes on the automatic fire system. 

I have a pull-handle fire system in my car but I didn't know you could get automatic systems.  I looked them up and I could change out my current manual Fire Bottle system for an automatic Fire Bottle system (it would fit right into the same space).  I'm going to have to consider that.  

The heat is one thing but it's the TIME that really got him. The difference between handfuls of seconds can be disability and death generating. Firefighter gear only gets tested in a simulated mannequin test for 12! seconds. Although the suits all have a min criteria, looking up the TPP of the different suits (higher is more protective generally), as well as wearing the highest rated undergarments, and having air gaps are helpful. 

*visor down, good gloves and shoes!

Thanks for the feedback folks. Couple of points from comments:

My system had 2 pull handles - one on passenger side B pillar for safety workers and one in the center for me.  I'd highly recommend having the center pull handle just inside the drivers window so it can be accessed by both driver and safety crew.  In my case the B pillar handle was against a tree, and I guess no one was going to reach in my burning car to pull the drivers handle.  If it had been where the other driver could have gotten to it immediately (as shown in the video) this probably would have been a much better outcome.

The car had a stock fuel system, and the whole back of the car was wide open so if fuel was going to be on fire, the whole car was going to be on fire.  You can have ballistic bladders installed into the stock Corvette tanks for $6000 in parts. However the impact so violent I'm not certain it would have helped in this case. If the fuel tube was compromised you're going to have fuel pissing whether your tanks are split or not.

The fire made a nice background, and I love fire, just not being on fire.

I would not have made the pass had I not been given a point by, which we tried to make clear in the video showing the data.  Obviously I made the wrong call, but since point bys are not required and frankly rare in W2W competition, when someone gives you a point by in a race, well, I don't know anyone who doesn't go for it. The Senna reference was tongue in cheek but I guess we maybe should have edited it out.  It's very rare that I give a point by being in one of the fastest cars in one of the fastest groups, but I've taken plenty of point bys from competitors who were very heads up and even put two wheels in the grass to create a space. We all know that in HPDE it's the overtaking driver whose responsibility it is to make a clean pass. In competition we expect two drivers to help make a clean pass.  Your awareness shouldn't be removed completely from the mirrors when you signal a pass, so while I don't blame the other driver in this case, it sure woulda been nice if he kept an eyeball on me for a second or two longer so he coulda taken some action by keeping all the way track right or even putting two in the grass.  While I lamented this in the hospital, many racers from that day messaged me and shared that viewpoint. So as I go around and start to speak at trackdays about this incident, that is something I'll specifically bring up in racers groups to try and gain a consensus. 

If you have a manual fire bottle many of them can be converted to auto.  I deal in Spa products now and we've converted a few to auto, but I only exclusively sell and stock full auto systems.

I'm going to link to an article that was written which goes into pretty nice depths about fire gear, fire systems, and fuel tanks in regards to my accident.  Thanks everyone for the support.

Rock the Curb article

In reply to AMT Motorsport :

Since I commented about the Senna reference I wanted to clarify:

 First I did take it as tongue in cheek, it speaks so well to our mindsets so it was absolutely appropriate to include it.  

I simply wanted to point out that we as drivers should really think hard about that mindset as we are now putting our fate in the other drivers hands to varying degrees.

I would also like to reiterate how much I appreciated you talking about the mental health issue; even in this day and age there still seems to be some level of stigma about it. We think nothing of getting a sports psychologist to improve lap times but hesitate getting therapist to deal with something like this.

I do have one question; has the track since cut down those trees and or put a tire barrier there? That seems like a sketchy part of the track.

Again thank you for being so open about the incident...............people need to see this and discuss it more than they do.

Finally if you've never been to Spring Mountain before, you're going to love it. It's my home track and a fantastic technical track.

In reply to Tom1200 :

Hey Tom - NJMP has since put up barriers around those trees so that's certainly a good step in the right direction.  Hopefully other track owners take notice and follow suit to protect their patrons from similar contact with trees.

Never been to Spring Mountain but definitely looking forward to it March 21 and 22!

glyn ellis said:

I got halfway through the video and started looking at fire suppression systems. What an incredible story

I didn't even make it that far.  I had no idea automatic extinguishers were available

In reply to AMT Motorsport :

We'll be out there for a PCA track day on the 19th.

After the event be sure to let us all know how it went.

I keep thinking about this one late at night. In the video Mark is relating things that happened while he was out, and we use a lot of expressions when we talk, so specific word choices may not worth worrying about, but... "Someone found a knife" rings in my head when talking about cutting belts loose when visibility and heat were both bad. Does every trackside extinguisher have a strap cutter taped to it? Do workers get to practice on expired belts and/or cheap nylon webbing?