Hey everyone, several days ago I completed the 2-Day Radical School at the Spring Mountain Motor Resort & Country Club in Pahrump, NV. I had a great time and learned a LOT about these incredible cars. The school cars were Radical SR3 XX. Here are my thoughts on it:
The 2-Day school started with an introduction of the instructors, students, the cars, the facilities, and how the next two days would go. My class had two instructors and two students. The training days alternated classroom instruction and driving the cars on the "Charleston Peak" somewhat short technical track at the facility. Classroom instruction included Powerpoint presentations, watching videos, and general instructor briefings/debriefings. Track time generally ran about 20 minutes or so per session and we did 5 sessions each day. Larger classes may only get 4 sessions per day since the instructors have to work with more students. Pahrump, NV is in the desert about 65 miles away from Las Vegas, NV. It's fairly close to Death Valley National Park in California. The weather was perfect and started in the high 30s F and heated up to the mid-60s F in the afternoon. Not a cloud in the sky!
The cars: Both students drove school Radical SR3 XX cars with the 1340 cc engine. Each car had AiM data loggers with cameras. Tires were Hankook DOT racing tires but not the slicks that are used during actual races.
Day 1 included getting fitted with driving gear and also getting fitted into the car. Each student had his own car. As I'm a bit short at 5' 7", they used a seat insert to get me closer to the pedals and, after a few tries, I had a good fit. Day 1 was about learning the car and getting comfortable with it. Coming from Miatas and S2000s on 200TW street performance tires, it took me a few sessions before I was comfortable pushing the car hard. I had to build up confidence that the car would "stick" during aggressive driving. Later in Day 1 did I realize that these cars have incredible grip once the tires got warmed up. I have never driven a car with this much aerodynamic downforce. It was amazing how the car would just "stick" going around a corner. I could feel the downforce increase as I went faster. I'm not used to that! At the end of the day, an instructor gave us a demo ride in an SR3 XX and I was further amazed at how much faster he was driving that car and going flat out on turns where I wasn't. We used his driving sessions as the baseline data for data analysis on Day 2.
Day 2 covered more track time and data analyses of our driving after two or three of our sessions. I got a lot out of the data analysis of my driving compared to one of the instructor's data from his driving the day prior. He spent a LOT more time on throttle than I did. We also covered race starts and then did more time on the track. I managed to spin off the track early in the day and that spooked me a bit. The car was undamaged but I felt like a dodged a bullet. Early on Day 1 we had to sign a form that made students responsible for paying for any damage to their cars and the prices weren't cheap. So I was relieved that there wouldn't be any extra bills to pay but the experience made me a bit timid for the rest of the day and all my lap times from thereon out were slower as a result. Even with that, I had a good time!
Final thoughts: The class wasn't cheap at $5495 but I got an excellent education in not only on how to drive these cars and what they are capable of but also the logistics behind operating them. Both instructors were excellent. My classmate had taken the course before and he did great. Just a fun group of people. I was impressed with the performance of the 1340 cc cars. As of right now, I'm still debating if I want to buy a used Radical to replace my current Honda S2000 time trial car. I really like the performance, visceral driving experience, safety, and the built-in data logging with the Radical. It will be the logistics part of ownership that may prevent me from buying one. I like to do as much maintenance as I can but I'm not sure how much I could do on these cars. Is there a shop in SoCal that knows there way around Radicals for maintenance that I can't do on my own? Also, what is the engine rebuild time for the 1340 cc engines? I've heard various answers from different sources (35 hours, 40 hours, 100 hours - I'm confused).
Anyway, it was a wonderful experience and I'm glad that I took the course. Highly recommended!
Hi Michael (@backmarker_billy), thank you for the great writeup on the class. It sounds like you had a great time and learned a lot about the car. The logistics of owning these cars isn't difficult if you have a truck and a trailer. The cars are easy to work on and the support that Spring Mountain provides is excellent. I live in Southern California also so I can share my experience. Any maintenance that I needed done to the car that I couldn't do my self was very rare. Typically if I had an issue that I couldn't figure out I would send an ECU Data file to SM and they would tell me what needed to be done to fix it. They would ship me the parts and would often give me a brief write up explaining how to install and adjust the parts. One time I had an on track loss of power that I couldn't figure out so I coordinated with SM and drove out there early in the morning (about a 5 hour drive) and they had a team of three or four people trouble shoot and repair the car while my wife and I had lunch at a local country club. Soon after I got back they had the car fixed and let me take it out on the track for about 20 minutes to make sure everything was working properly. Then I loaded up the car an returned to California. It was a long day but very doable. Regarding overhaul times for the 1340 engines, I believe the official recommendation is 40 hours like the 1500, however, most people rebuild them at around 80 hours without issue.
