Although I have not actually run at Bonneville I have had some experience in high heat stress environments that might be helpful to some of the drivers and crews.
First at one time I was stupid enough to try to run marathons for several years and dehydration is literally a killer for runners too.
Here is the basic recommendation from the Road Runners club of America:
Avoid dehydration!!! You can lose between 6 and 12 oz. of fluid for every 20 minutes of running. Therefore it is important to pre-hydrate (10-15 oz. of fluid 10 to 15 minutes prior to running) and drink fluids every 20-30 minutes along your running route. To determine if you are hydrating properly, weigh yourself before and after running. You should have drunk one pint of fluid for every pound you’re missing. Indications that you are running while dehydrated are a persistent elevated pulse after finishing your run and dark yellow urine. Keep in mind that thirst is not an adequate indicator of dehydration.
I also for a time shot competitive high power where you get in a black leather jacket and lay in the hot sun for 20-30 minutes at a stretch in 90+ deg temps. Cool wet towels on the neck and shade were priceless under those conditions as was drinking early and often.
Know your salt/electrolyte demands. Some people dump a lot of salt with their sweat and need electrolyte replacement drinks like gator aid, others after becoming conditioned to high heat stress sweat nearly pure water and will be made sick by drinking those "enhanced drinks". Many runners could not tolerate them and would mix 50/50 electrolyte drinks in the first 10-12 miles of the run and then water only for the next 5 or so miles then nothing at all in the very end miles pouring the water over themselves rather than drinking it as it did not have time to get into their systems at that late point in the race.
I suspect water loss to a fully suited driver is very comparable to a runner in high temps. The one thing most folks do not understand is that it takes almost 20 - 30 minutes for water to get into your circulatory system after you drink it so you Must drink
before you need the water. If you are thirsty it is too late you are already dehydrated. Drink early drink often (water that is)
Second when I was in Mountain rescue and we used heated O2 to warm hypothermic patients, temperature controlled air intake is a very effective way to cool or warm a person, as the air has direct contact with a huge surface area of the lung and the massive blood in the vascular system in the lungs. I think cooled breathing air should almost be mandatory for drivers in tightly confined vehicles fully strapped in and waiting to start. Do what ever you can to pipe chilled air to the driver when he is sitting strapped into the cockpit pre start.
One old service station trick folks might think about is when I was a kid on really hot days at the gas station we would take a compressed air hose and stick it in our front pocket and just crack the blow nozzle to flood our pants pocket with compressed air. It very rapidly cools from expansion and the evaporation of the sweat and cools the groin area which is also a high heat loss area from the femoral arteries in the inner thigh. A poor mans cool suit might be as simple as a small hose run down into the belly or waist band area of the drivers suit and fed with 2-3 psi compressed air from a regulator, to push cool dry air into the suit to help control heat build up and sweat wetting of the suit.
The highest heat loss areas of the upper body are the under arm area on the side of the torso and the neck so the common approach of dropping the top half of the fire suit has good basis in medical science. Cold packs to the neck would be another way to help cool a suited driver just before zip up.
I would suggest placing signs near the starting line reminding drivers to drink water about 6-8 cars back, they need to drink their fill, 20 minutes prior to engine start for it to do them any good on the line and the course due to the delay to get it into the circulatory system. Cool -tepid water enters the system quicker than ice cold water by the way, although the ice cold water will provide more short term cooling.
It might be a good idea to give the driver a Popsicle or snow cone just before buttoning up the suit as a way to cool the body core. Perhaps a source of chipped ice near the starting line for use by the drivers only??
Just some observations that might be helpful as you think about proposals to the "management".
For what it is worth.
Larry
