Guys a little reminder everything about how this happened is strickly rumor right now. The story has changed several times sense yesterday. Everyone gets exited and starts talking up the should and should nots of nitrous bottle handling.

This is what we know.

There was no torch heating the bottle.
Puddin and Jimmy Biggs have been very forward in there post and claimed to know what really happened. Both have changed stories just like everyone else has and the readers of these post stories change to follow.
Someone mentioned the bottle may have been dropped after whoever was carrrying it tripped.
Mike Walker passed away and this is a tragedy no matter how it happened.

I have had many safety disk burst and that alone is more excitement than I care for.

I would be interested to know what kind of valve was on the bottle.

I witnessed a bottle with a 1/4 turn valve at Moroso turn over. The valve opened and knocked a charcoal grill over while burning and made for a lot of excitement.

Until we know what happened we can't say what we should change, if anything, in how to handle nitrous bottles. Any compressed gas cylinder can be dangerous under the right conditions. Just terribly sorry Mike got killed by one.

Leon

Well said Leon. The main reason I get so frustrated with all the nitrous horror stories is because I've really been wanting to put a kit on my car to run Thompson's 8.90 index class. But money is tight right now and the stuff just honestly scares me anymore.

Bob and everybody else, that nitrous is very dangerous!!!

A overheated bottle can do more then just shoot off like a rocket and fly up in the air and return to earth.

That stuff when overheated in the bottle can litterally blow up like a Bomb!!!

IMO caged or not.

Google "Nitrous bottle explosions"


I was once emailed a pic one time and didnt believe it. But its for real and happens more then we know about.

"Bottle explosions", happens a Whole lot less then "Intake explosions".

But as we get complacent about the dangers of the stuff its happening a whole lot more.

But compared to a Bottle Explosion, I would rather have a intake explosion, hands down,

RIP, Mike Walker mike

And your the expert?How long have you ran NOS?
How many a 1000s of cars run NOS safely every weekend.YES there are maybe 200 videos on Youtube of the bad side.I think that is good for as long as it's been around.
Yes bad stuff can happen,but you guys think it's a ticking time boob.Some dumba$$ congress man is looking for a reason to make it illegal stop helping him.Lenny

Shows how quickly things can turn to do-do. One of our local WCHRA racers had a similar thing happen at our last race. One of the crew members hit the handle of the ball valve on one of their nitrous bottles. It was inside of the team's trailer. The thing took off like a rocket and bounced off the roof and walls like a ping-pong ball. It did some damage but fortunately no one was hurt. Sounds like these things need to be caged or tied down to prevent accidents.

Sorry to be pissy about this but everyone jumps on the band wagon.This is my power adder of choice.People that know nothing about it are going to make it go by the waist side.
You are right about being complacent,but that goes for anything in racing.If seen more cars and people hurt this year from gas pedals sticking then I can remember.Are the gas pedals dangers or the people in control of them?
I will let sleeping dogs lie right here.
Once again sorry to the family.Lenny

Mike was not a newbee to nitrous. Read his post. He has been around it for quite a while.

Do a search on Mike Walker. He was on a lot of forums and post about nitrous.

Bob I don't know if this incident had anything to do with a valve or not as it was just something I read in a post that was not confirmed. Although if it where one of these valves you and I both know well what can happen.

It appears from reading Mike's post he was looking for an edge and loved the sport. I don't know if I ever met him although he looks familiar. I'm sure there is enough Monday morning quarterbacking to go around. I'm sure there are people who have a better idea what happened. Maybe we will find out simply to learn from a mishap. Although it is too late for Mike. My thoughts and prayers are with his family, team, and freinds.

RIP freind of the spray.

Leon

ProSport, the reason you get nasty messages, is because of comments like this...."can't believe the stuff is even legal". If you want something that is very dangerous if mishandled outlawed, it should be nitro. Anything can and does go wrong at times and it is generally always human error, or taking something for granted.

Mike Walker was a personal friend of mine and I was at SGMP this past weekend when this occurred and not far away either. Suffice it to say, Mike was an experienced guy and was doing what he and many others have done thousands of times. It was just a freak accident, that caused a chain of unfortunate actions, that resulted in a loss of life. Won't get into specifics, but the Carbon bottle did not fail, it did not blow the threads out of the bottle, nor did a valve fail. It was just a freak accident and what should be learned, it to respect a pressurized cylinder and what it can do, if something goes wrong and to be careful and treat it with the proper respect.

Monte

Something as simple as a small handheld propane cylinder can be dangerous under the right circumstances. Accidents happen. It is so bad that the racing community is so quick to bash our own.

Leon

A failure of the bottle or valve, is not what started the chain of events at SGMP and talking about the events that killed a friend, is not something I want to do.......but I will relate the story below.

I just talked with Mike Thermos and he related a story that just happened to him recently. He picked up a bottle, thinking it was empty. He had it by the valve and inadvertedly turned the valve a little. Enough nitrous escaped to force the bottle from his hand and take off across the shop floor. It hit the wall and he was able to catch it and shut the valve off. Now, you take that same scenario and the loose bottle hits the wall, but this time it knocks the valve off the bottle. You now have a rocket on your hands, that could kill you. There was no bottle or valve failure that would have started the event. Any pressurized cylinder, including the one that dispenses the Coke at your favorite restuarant could kill you, if something happened, such as the bottle falling over, or whatever and knocked the valve off.

Monte

Monte thanks for the example from Mike Thermos.

Enough said.

Anyone who has messed with a lot of nitrous or any pressurized cylinder has had a mishap whether mild or wild and most of the time gets away with it.

I left one in front of a generater exhaust pipe to warm up. Forgot about it and when I got back and reached to grab it the safety disk ruptured. It was the early type with no down tube. The bottle rolled around on the ground and blew sand everywhere. Very lucky no-one got hurt. I hadn't ran nitrous very long and it got my attention very quickly. The only difference for carbon fiber bottles is they are lighter and would move around easier when gas escapes.

I got in a company truck one time with multiple gas and oxygen tanks in the bin. None were strapped, this I didn't know at first. The door flew open and all the tanks came out. I was very afraid while getting the two bottles that did not have the caps on them. So I released all the gas before loading them up. Took them to the supplier and they inspected the valves both were cracked and ready to fail.

Nitrous bottles are just one of many types of high pressure gas cylinders. Do you walk through stores with aerosol cans. They can kill you too. A friend of mine has a large facial scar because of a paint can that exploded for no apparant reason when he was a kid.

Things happen.

Sorry it happened to Mike

Leon

Very sorry that happened.... Most every nitrous bottle I've ever seen has it's roots in scuba including the carbon bottles. I was diving carbon bottles 20 years ago that were fire dept cast offs. We took them to a company called press steel for destructive testing, and in every instance the valve failed, not the bottle. I've only seen 2 bottle failures in diving, one that maimed a friend, and one that just blew the roof off a fill station. I understand the bottle didn't fail, and am only commenting to say nitrous bottles are extremely robust and like in diving, a bottle failure would be extremely rare. Every single instance of bottle failure I've seen or read about has been from either powder coating the bottle, or some other heating beyond almost anything someone would do to it to heat it normally. Also the valves NOS uses in particular are more rugged than most of the scuba valves I see. Also when you consider the same bottles used for nitrous get used at more than twice the pressure in scuba, there is a good deal of redundancy built right in. So I guess all I’m trying to say is don’t be scared of nitrous equipment, just be aware of how you deal with the stuff.

iirc i've seen ball valves mentioned a couple times here. if they're using a full port ball valve on these cylinders the discharge rate from the bottle would be phenomenal. i've worked around high pressures for many years and it commands great respect. a nitrous bottle with a 1/2" (i'm guessing) valve is bad enough. in our line of work (refinery) you can be dealing with pressures of steam, hydrogen and hydrocarbon in excess of 1000 psi and 1000° in large quantities (16-18" lines). i can't even imagine the ultra super-critical steam generator stuff that runs in excess of 4000 psi. you really have to see what high pressure can do to fully appreciate it. it's really sad that someone lost their life, high pressure has a way of doing that. here's a link to some pics of a natural gas line that had a vessel fail during a nitrogen pressure test. this incident came out in one of our safety bulletins, unfortunately there was loss of life involved with this as well. take a close look at the size of these components and flanges that whipped around like a garden hose. iirc the root cause was a substandard weld failing on the vessel with the light tree laying next to it. energy kills, pressure, like gravity rules...

web page

Speaking as a 30 year Industrial Design engineer and construction Manager on 4 continents and have taught classes on NEC CLASS I and CLASS II (explosive gases and Dusts respectively). I've designed safety systems to pump and react Ethylene and propylene oxide I can tell you that although risks can almost never be eliminated, but they certainly can be mitigated (reduced to very low probabilities). I hear guys say Sh^^ happens but that won't scour if someone nest to you doesn't know the risks screws up (or just gets careless) and mis-handles a potentially explosive or any high potential energy device. A nitrous bottle (for example) could fly out of your hand and hit someone's wife...or heaven forbid a child. In industry we make certain that people are adequately safety trained for the environment they work in. You can work in a field 50 years and you still may not have adequate safewty knowledge of the potential hazards if it never happened to you....sad but true. Guys like Monte obviously know the dangers and they respect them...unfortunately a lot of guys in the pits on any given week-end do not. But Freak accidents can almost always be avoided by properly trained persons, the best electricians treat every wire like it is hot...even when they know they cut they power off themselves. Cowboys and things that go boom or bang never make for a good combination.

Industrial valves often have additional double block interlocks (two hands to open/set/position indicators, pins, etc) and other safety features installed so inadvertant accidents are far less likely to happen. But that's typically only required when you're dealing with darwin award candidates....Qualified people can rely on training but unfortunately just about any yahoo with a credit card can buy some really dangerous stuff...and park next to you. If not in the pits maybe in an RV park with a 20 dollar propane tank (hey y'all, watch this!).

Solutions don't have to be expensive and be bogged down in regulations either, guys can police themselves if the right people step up and say this can't be allowed to happen again....make some easy to enforce solutions like....don't 'think' (ASSume) the bottle is empty...just always handle,treat and store it and RESPECT IT LIKE IT WAS FULLY CHARGED REGARDLESS. Just like If you ride a motorcycle, always ride as though you are invisible and therefore nothing anyone else does will ever suprise you. Assume the danger is always present, train yourself to think this way as second nature and you'll never be suprised...or worst case you'll instictively know how to react. Training and just some basic safety sense is almost always the key to keeping yourself AND OTHERS safe. A guy in Monte's position can really stand up and be heard.

Yeah I'm fully aware of high pressure bottles and what
they can/will do.... I just wasnt sure how the gas
escaped at that rate if the valve or bottle didnt fail,
are those bottles a 1/4 or 1/2 turn for full open?

Post deleted by ProSport