When Rick Mears pitted on lap 58 (1981 Indianapolis 500), fuel began to gush from the refueling hose before it had been connected to the car. Fuel sprayed over the car, Mears and his mechanics, then ignited when it contacted the engine. Methanol burns with a transparent flame and no smoke, and panic gripped the pit as crew members and spectators fled from the invisible fire. Mears, on fire from the waist up, jumped out of his car and ran to the pit wall, where a safety worker, not seeing the fire, tried to remove Mears' helmet. Meanwhile, Mears' fueler, covered in burning fuel, waved his arms frantically to attract the attention of the fire crews already converging on the scene. By this time the safety worker attending to Mears had fled, and Mears, in near panic at being unable to breathe, leaped over the pit wall toward another crewman carrying a fire extinguisher, who dropped the extinguisher and also fled. Mears tried to turn the extinguisher on himself, but at this point his father, Bill Mears, having already pulled Rick's wife Deena to safety, grabbed the extinguisher and put out the fire. His mechanics had also been extinguished, and the pit fire crew arrived to thoroughly douse Mears' car.
Thanks to quick action by safety workers and the fact that methanol burns at a much lower temperature than gasoline, no one was seriously hurt in the incident. Mears and four of his mechanics (including Derrick Walker, a future crewchief on the Penske team) were sent to hospital, and Mears underwent plastic surgery on his face, particularly on his nose. The incident prompted a redesign to the fuel nozzle used on Indycars, adding a safety valve that would only open when the nozzle was connected to the car. -LiveLeak
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