What It's Like Inside a Burning Drift Car
Anyone who's spent time on the track has thought about it. You're driving what amounts to a giant fuel pump, feeding absurd quantities of highly flammable liquid to an ignition source that's surrounded by other hot metal and electricity. Everything is pushed to its limit. So what, then, do you do when something breaks and a fire starts?
It's a question worth considering because, as a new video from drifter Collete Davis shows, you don't always have a lot of time in the moment. While driving her drift C6 Corvette, a fuel rail got loose and leaked gas throughout the engine bay, Davis says in the video. When it ignited, the flames spread quickly. The video shows a car that appears totally normal and then, just one second later, flames are licking into the passenger compartment.
Davis stops the car, detaches the wheel, grabs the extinguisher, and gets out safely. The one thing she doesn't do—and this is understandable given the panic and speed of the moment—is turn off the car. It's not hard to see why, though, as flames are towering out of the hood by the time she's out. She's unable to get the safety pin out of her extinguisher, but others show up quickly with additional extinguishers and begin fighting the fire. The car is a wreck, but Davis escaped unhurt.
"I didn't have a fire suppression system in the car, but will be installing one," Davis says in a Facebook post. "It’s not required for the series I compete in, and wouldn’t have stopped the fire completely - but definitely would’ve helped contain it."
Though she wasn't wearing a full fire suit, the driver credits her driving gloves for providing some protection.
"Drifting as a whole is very relaxed when it comes to safety gear, and often times the debate is heat exhaustion - or fire safety," Davis says. "I learned my lesson here and will be adding a cooling system."
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