This is ridiculous, at least the first part of your post. Yes, some nutjobs create engines that run on weird shit, like methanol and a mixture of other solvents, but this is far and between, as far as I know it not only destroys the engines and runs hot as shit (which on any commercial track would be a danger and a lawsuit waiting to happen), but is not even effective in racing go carts (i am assuming you are talking about racing go carts, since smashing into ones full of alcohol and nitromethane while they are running hot would most likely end up tragically).
I heard of this being used in racing remote controlled vehicles (which I mentioned in this thread already) and also drag racing.. I quickly googled it to make sure and if anyone is interested, here is an article talking about different mixes used in drag racing, they mention xylene and toluene, even diethyl ether, but to be honest I only skimmed through it, so I do not know if the article is worth anything, but it does state that nitromethane does make it hot as fuck which does not take a genius to figure out and even mentions a trial run(?) or some test they ran for the article that ended up with high temperatures and stuff indicating a "detonation" when running nitromethane - they also referred to technical inspections (did not even know there were such, but apparently you would not pass one when running nitro).
Here is the article for anyone interested;
https://foxvalleykart.com/fuel6.html
However about photography companies, you are spot on, the hobbyists that still use dark rooms use many solvents (most disguised under brand names, quick look-ups of such chemicals quickly turns up their make-up) and chemicals that would be useful for members of our community. It is worthwhile to look on auction sites for people selling off their dark room equipment, usually they also list all the chemicals for sale and it is amazing what you can find.