Quote Originally Posted by Ray Bell View Post
It certainly doesn't take long for everything to change...

I often think as I go away working each weekend how much I'd lose if there was a house fire.

Magazine collections, photographs, books, things that are either impossible or very hard to replace. Insurance means nothing to these things.
My thoughts too, especially when we are away for a fair part of winter. I have started listing and even photographing the spines of books of greatest value and had a quite a shock when a 2m long bookshelf alone had a conservative value of several thousand dollars.

Memorabilia back to pre-war race programmes, many autographed items, limited edition Michael Turner prints, models, cuttings etc., not to mention non motoring stuff or the stuff in the garage, the very thought of a house fire is scary.

A car fire at the track is thankfully quite rare but who can forget that Aussie (?) V8 that went up in flames just past the pit entry at Pukekohe and the fire truck took forever to get there?

Decades ago, wasn't it Stirling Moss who escaped his crashed car with a broken leg, as he dreaded the thought of being trapped in a burning car?

I also believe that our marshal posts are ill equipped as I seem to remember the British system was two extinguishers to knock down the fire and two to blanket it to stop it re-igniting. Happy to be proved wrong, but as a former partner in Chicane Racewear, I am also well aware that even the best race suit covered in burning fuel is not going to be much use if the fire isn't out within 30 seconds. Race suits are fire resistant, not fire proof...