Despite what Talladega Nights may have led you to believe, racing drivers are much more calm around fire than the average person.
No matter how on fire a car may seem from the outside, drivers often calmly finish their procedures before exiting and walking away at a normal pace. Some even go a step further and help the fire-fighting team. During this year’s Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta, IMSA driver Jan Heylen went even further than that and put out an entire substantial fire himself.
(Ed. Note: See the fire at 21:32 of the video below):
Heylen was running second in the Wright Motorsports-run No. 16 Porsche 911 GT3 R during the closing laps of this year’s Petit Le Mans when the car caught fire after contact with a competitor, eventually erupting into a fireball that engulfed the whole engine bay. He then pulled over at a marshal’s post, hoping someone could put the fire out and save the car. With time of the essence, he asked for a fire extinguisher, walked back to the rear of the Porsche, and put the fire out himself.
That quick action kept the car in surprisingly good shape. Despite a spectacular fire engulfing the engine bay for a fairly long time, photos from the paddock show that the Porsche still maintained most of the shape of a Porsche race car.
That burnt wreckage might still be salvageable, all because Heylen grabbed a fire extinguisher, took matters into his own hands, and got to work as if this was the hundredth burning Porsche engine he had dealt with.
Update, 1:00 p.m. EST, October 16th: Multiple corner marshals at this year’s Petit Le Mans have clarified to Road & Track that IMSA regulations prevent them from going over the wall to help with fires without approval. While they were unable to fight the fire directly, a nearby corner worker did use the extinguisher to clear a path for Heylen to safely grab the bottle and put out the fire before a safety team arrived.
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