The failure of the emergency cut off switch was the cause of Craig Breen and Paul Nagle’s retirement from the second day of Rally Sweden.
All rally cars are fitted with an external cut off switch which is accessible from both the inside and outside of the car. In the event of an accident event officials or spectators outside the car or the crew in the cockpit can pull the switch. It cuts off the power supply to the battery and the fuel supply to the engine.
It is accessible from the outside in case the crew are trapped in the car and there is a need to cut power or fuel supply quickly.
It sits on the scuttle panel (the panel between the windscreen and bonnet) near where the windscreen wiper mechanics are located on most cars.
Breen and Nagle were about 2kms into the 14th stage of the rally when their Ford Puma suddenly lost power and stopped on the stage.
Speaking to Becs Williams of WRC.com All Live earlier today the Waterford man explained what happened.
“Simple, it was just to kill switch, the emergency cut off switch on windscreen panel,” he said.
“I managed to bypass it after a while. We were lucky to have full signal out there and I was able to FaceTime the mechanics. I was [working] with frozen fingers.”
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