Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach Safety Seminar:
Fire Protection, Heat Stress, and
Electric Vehicle Racing Safety
Saturday, April 20th, 2024
9:00 AM - 11:00AM
Room 203 ( Upstairs)
Long Beach Convention Center, Long Beach, CA
As we celebrate 15 years of service to the motorsport community, we are pleased to return to Long Beach and provide another opportunity to hear from internationally recognized safety experts and veteran drivers with practical advice on how to make racing safer for drivers, crew, and track personnel, wherever they compete.
The Racing Goes Safer Safety Seminar held at the 2024 Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach provided enough practical safety advice, rules and regulation status, and entertainment to keep its audience fully captivated on Saturday morning, the 20th of April.
The program began with Stand 21 Safety Foundation Director Don Taylor reflecting on the 15th anniversary of the Foundation and reminding everyone of the great drivers and safety experts who have presented at its seminars. Taylor’s list totaled over forty names. It includes such motorsports safety pioneers as Dr. John Melvin, Dr. Terry Trammell, Dr. Steven Olvey, Dr. Jacques Dallaire, Dr. Paul Trafford, Tom Gideon of NASCAR, Nuno Costa of the FIA, HANS developer Jim Downing, and champion drivers including Jackie Ickx, Brian Redman, Danny Sullivan, Bob Bondurant, Tony Stewart, Del Worsham, Larry Dixon, to name a few.
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Don Taylor, Yves Morizot, Dean Case, & Roman Morizot
President of Stand 21 Racewear and the RGS Safety Foundation, Yves Morizot,
accompanied by his son and Stand 21 VP Romain Morizot next gave their warm
welcome and introductory remarks. That was followed by Dean Case of the Society of
Automotive Engineers Southern California Region (SAE) presenting a check to the Morizots, a financial donation to support the work of the non-profit Foundation. Other donations are appreciated to help expand the reach of its seminar program and online educational content.
Shortly after, Jim Michaelian the President /CEO of the Grand Prix Association of Long
Beach took to the stage to congratulate the Foundation on its 15th Anniversary and to
pledge his long term commitment to hosting of the seminar which has become a
“tradition” at his event.
Says Yves Morizot, President of the Stand 21 Safety Foundation “We appreciate Jim Michaelian and the Grand Prix Association of Long Beach having our safety seminar back every year”.
Industry notables attending included Southern California Timing Association (SCTA) former President Lee Kennedy, Formula E Race Director Scot Elkins, newly named President of the Performance Racing Industry (PRI) association Michael Good accompanied by PRI General Manager Jim Liaw, Gill Campbell of the Vintage Motorsport Association, and former Editor of Road & Track magazine John Dinkel.
Boris Said survives fire at 2009 Long Beach Grand Prix
Popular driver Boris Said, perhaps best known for driving sports cars, then talked of becoming more safety conscious thru the years of his career. After first showing the video his Corvette on fire while racing at Long Beach in 2009, he took the audience through his second by second thoughts as the incident unfolded. He told how he could smell the fumes of noxious burning carbon-fiber material, and of holding his breath, while scraping along the wall as he had no clear vision, and on to the run-off area where he thought the fire fighters would be stationed, and to stay out of the of other cars on the track. That took about twenty seconds of sitting in the heat of the enveloping gasoline fire before he came to a halt and was able to get himself out. He gave credit to the track’s fire crew and to the performance of the Stand 21 driving suit he selected to wear at the last second that day for being able go home that night, unscathed.
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Boris Said - Winning professional driver in NASCAR, IMSA, Trans-Am,
V8 Supercars, and X-Games
To end his presentation on a lighter note, Boris told the story of his first experience in racing a NASCAR Cup car. Initially intimidated by the “Intimidator” Dale Earnhardt Sr., Said wound up giving Dale friendly advice on car set-up, and had the 7-time NASCAR Champion gladly make him a peanut butter and jelly sandwich!
Dr. Claude Meistleman came all the way from France to share the latest from Europe on
the FIA’s electric vehicle racing safety practices. His knowledge comes from serving as Chief Medical Director at LeMans, and at WRC and Formula E events in France. He noted that in the ten years of pure-electric Formula E racing, and the hybrid era of F1, rally, and world sports cars, there has not been a single battery-caused fire on the track. However, he cautioned that there have now been several serious battery-related fires in the garage and pit areas, often while charging the batteries.
Dr. Claude Meistelman - Chief Medical Officer in France for LeMans, WRC,
and Formula E events & Heat Stress researcher
Eric Huhn continued on the EV racing safety topic and stressed that the racing industry
is still in the evolutionary process of determining the best rules and practices for addressing the EV safety issue. Huhn also provided some basics on the different types of fire extinguishers and agents, and the pros and cons of how they perform in different types of fires, as the audience took notes.
Eric Huhn - UNC Charlotte Lab Safety Engineer, battery researcher,
FSAE EV Safety, EVR Safe founder
At the end, many compliments were received from the audience on the value of the information presented, and in one case how they specifically learned something to include in their own sanctioning body’s rules for EV race cars. Yves Morizot later said “With the feedback from our attendees that we delivered useful information today, that makes me feel we are being successful in our mission!
