Fire System Guide for Sprint Cars (2023)
Fire Suppression Systems for Sprint Cars - 2023 Rule Change
For the 2023 season, the World of Outlaws series is mandating a fire suppression system in all sprint cars. In short, the World of Outlaws is requiring a 5lb. fire bottle with an SFI rating of 17.3 be mounted to the frame. The fire suppression system must also include a thermal trigger and manual trigger both mounted in the driver's area. To help sort out the new rules and what's required, we've put together a couple videos outlining the necessary sprint car fire suppression system and showing how to install a fire bottle.
Fire Bottle Installation
To help clarify what the install of a sprint car fire system looks like, we borrowed the 410 car of Tyler Drueke and installed a Lifeline system. Follow the steps shown in the video and your race car will be legal for the 2023 season as well as a little safer. In addition to the Lifeline system that we installed on Tyler's car, we also offer the FireBottle fire suppression system, which is also approved to meet the new sprint car rules.
On our install, we chose to put the bottle on the left side of the car. It can be mounted on either side, but the left was chosen as a more desirable place to hang the weight. The Lifeline system comes with some slick looking billet brackets to mount the bottle. We had to remove a small amount of material from the brackets to get the screws to start. Depending on your car and the thickness of your paint or powdercoat, you may or may not need to do this as well. Note that we clocked the bottle so that the gauge pointed up, making it easy to see for driver, crew, and tech inspector.
The Lifeline system has the automatic thermal trigger right on the bottle, so with the bottle mounted, the only real job left to do was mounting the cable. We made a small steel bracket to mount the trigger near the wing valve on the left side of the car. The cable was then neatly routed down to the bottle and cut to length.
How a Fire Bottle Works
In the video below, you can see that when activated, these fire systems don't obscure the driver's vision like a foam system. The "clean agent" is also non corrosive. You can also see how quickly the system extinguishes the fire.
Both the DuPont FE-36 suppressant in the Fire Bottle system and the Novec 1230 gas in the Lifeline system are capable of filling the cockpit and extinguishing the fire without being sprayed directly on the flames. Below is a video that shows how the DuPont suppressant in the FireBottle system starts as a Clear liquid, then turns into vapor and displaces oxygen, starving the fire.
Please reference the World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series rule book for the most up-to-date information.
