I agree that you need to be concerned with safety all the time, whether it is during time trials, a street car night at the track, or during racing. Anyone who know me knows that I have no sympathy for the GN owner who won't put a bar in his car because "it is too nice to cut up" but then whines about not being allowed to run 10's at the track - follow the rules or don't play (and I think somewhere in the 11's is a reasonable place to require a roll bar given the speeds and crash-likelihood and car crashworthiness). However, safety rules should be based on experience and reflect the likelihood of a problem ocurring. I think that it is much more likely for a 7 second car to have a fire than a 17 second car, and therefore it is reasonable to require more fire safety equipment on the 7 second car than on the 17 second car. I have seen 3 fires (or the aftermath) at dragstrips: an 8 second car, a 9 second car, and an 11 second car, and one 10 second car that burned while street racing. I think it is reasonable to require fire suits on 11 second and faster cars, but I think requiring the same fire suit on a 17 second car is unreasonable because the likelihood of it ever providing a benefit is so small compared to the expense and hassle-factor. If you have ever sat in the staging lanes in a fire suit on a 95 degree afternoon you know what hot is, and can appreciate how onerous requiring one in a very slow car would be. Somewhere between 11 and 17 seconds is a reasonable place to draw the line, I just feel that it should be closer to the 11 second end of that range than 13.99. If safety rules are too overbearing compared to the perceived need, then people will either ignore them whenever they can or stop going to the track to race, and either way safety will suffer. I would love to know the statistics of numbers of car fires versus et, but I doubt the NHRA would ever release anything like that. If they do have data to show that firesuits would make a difference in driver safety at the 13.99 level I would love to see it, and I would absolutely go along with their requirement.