Racing cars carry fire extinguisher bottles therein. The fire extinguisher bottles carry pressurized fire extinguishing material. The bottles are provided with manually operated valves to release the extinguishing material, and the bottles have distribution tubes which distribute the extinguishing material to the engine compartment and the driver compartment. In most cases, these fire extinguisher bottles are clamped in the racing car in a horizontal position when the racing car is in its normal upright position.
In order to obtain delivery of the liquid fire extinguishing material in the bottle, a pick-up tube is provided therein. If it were not for the dynamics of the racing car, the pick-up tube could be fixed so that the pick-up tube inlet is in the bottom of the bottle. However, as can be appreciated with respect to racing cars, if there is an upset, the pick-up tube should still be in the bottom of the bottle. Previously, it has been attempted to mount the pick-up tube on a polymer tube which presumably would be sufficiently flexible to permit the metal pick-up tube to have its suction end lie in the bottom of the fire extinguisher bottle. However, such polymer tubes are not reliable. They may become stiff due to normal aging or exposure to the bottle contents and not permit motion of the inlet end of the tube. They may break so that only a portion of the fire extinguishing fluid in the bottle can be discharged. Thus, the use of a polymer tube does not satisfy safety needs. While this invention is described with respect to a racing car environment, it can be appreciated that the fire extinguisher bottle with pick-up tube in accordance with this invention is useful in other locations where orientation can change.