I’m a little concerned about HPDE with larger cars. I’ve run with Radicals and sometimes they are very hard to pickup in the rear view mirrors especially with a Hans. Am I overthinking this? Have people mounted lights on the hoop for better visibility? I’m concerned about aerodynamics but think a small light bar would help with recognition.
I run DE off and on still. You may not get pointed by as fast as you would in a street car, but getting noticed is mostly about where you drive. If you tuck up under the bumper, you aren't going to be seen. You also can't see the point.
Instead I position myself in the driver side mirror. No way to miss me, and you won't have any trouble getting by after that.
I'm with Garrett. I plant myself in the wing mirror where I want to go by. It works pretty well. I'd also recommend mentioning it during the driver's meeting: "hi guys, I'm out here in a <color> Radical and I can be pretty hard to see, blah, blah, blah"
It's the Porsches that don't see me so well, lol.
You will struggle with someone sooner or later. The sessions I have the most trouble in are typically the "advanced" sessions that are full of fast cars like John mentions (cough GT3 RS cough). Those cases are more about unwillingness to believe you are faster though and not so much about not seeing you. They don't like wasting all that big HP on the straights.
Another time you might see issues is if you grid up front and are surrounded by Corvettes. They like to go out hot and only have 1 or 2 laps at that pace. You will take 3 or 4 laps just to get everything warm, so they don't want to sit behind you and waste their good laps. You can deal with this during driver's meeting as well - just tell those guys you are going to grid behind them, let them get their quick laps in while you get the tires warm, and then you can go sailing by.
Ben (@cirrusdriver), Reach out to Forum member @jwfannin. He came up with a fantastic low cost way to add lights to his car.
Charley
I have been working on the same thing. I will have a two prong system.
First, I will have a 6" LED bar on top of the roll bar, and then I will have a flash-to-pass style flashing headlight system. 4 forward-facing 4" lights. Two will act as headlights and two will blink to alert upcoming cars. I will also have two additional 1" leds on each side similar to @jwrfannin that will also blink.
I'll try to link a video.
@tommymills, looks great! How are you making the wiring connection between the nose and the dashboard?
Charley
@tommymills, looks great! How are you making the wiring connection between the nose and the dashboard?
Charley
Charlie, I am leveraging the factory wiring for the actual headlights and will run them off the factory switch on the dash. For the blinking lights I will supply GND and PWR wires mirroring the factory wire installs and then triggering them with a moment switch on my steering wheel. The install should be complete just as soon as it warms up enough here for me to mold some lexan light covers.
@tommymills, sounds like a great plan. We’re you able to find a connector that matches chassis connector. Also, when the factory lights are installed after the cars leave the factory there is a jumper wire that needs to be added to the switches. I don’t know why the factory leaves out this jumper wire but they do. It may not matter with the way you are wiring it?
Here is a wiring diagram for the switches on the dash that might be helpful.
Digging this myself. What lights are you using? How hard are they to mount?
I've ditched most of Radical's original wiring and am using ECUMaster PMU and CAN-based switches and keypad. I've got a couple of circuits left for headlights.
@parsonsj Kit Leslie did the leg work on finding and picking these lights, but these are the ones we used.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07SJ934MT
To run the flashing lights I sourced a Wave Wager that has 36 different flashing patterns. Plenty to choose from...
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B079M9R5YN
I will gladly share my wiring when I have it complete. But basically, I will run a common ground and run a moment switch through the +12V line to turn the lights on and off as needed.
Ben,
I've been running a lot of HPDE's with my car which is also black. I've received a lot of complements on my graphics. They're florescent red/orange and really make the car stand out. Everyone says they have absolutely no problem seeing the car and really like the way it looks. I know you already have graphics picked out but it might be something to consider. I do think it makes a huge difference.
On a different note, make sure your car has an oil preheater and a cooling fan. I have chassis 860 and it didn't come with either. You WILL need them in Wisconsin and the surrounding tracks. Our cars take way to long to warm up with out the preheater when it's ~40 degrees and you will struggle to keep the temp from getting too hot when coming back off the track without the fan. Other cars will doddle along not realizing we need airflow to stay cool. They'll also having you sit around forever waiting to get on track and without the fan you'll need to shut down and restart a lot.
Both the fan and preheater are easy installs. Our cars are wired for the fan already, it just needs to be plugged in. Stradale installed the preheater in mine and sold me the kit for the fan. Was inexpensive and didn't take long to install. Hopefully you already have them and I just wasted a bunch of time. 🙂
Ok thanks for the heads up. I will check into those options. I know it doesn’t have the oil preheater.
@charleyhradicalsportscarregistry-com
I heard that an owner that raced night endurance installed some LED lighting on the hoop bar that was very bright.
I managed to track down a link to the product they used(see below). I ordered the larger set and am going to come up with a plan to use part of it assuming I can find a clean install that doesn’t affect the aero much. It’s my understanding they are very bright and still work for the daytime.
@cirrusdriver, that looks like a little HD double sided tape would do the trick. I wonder if it needs some sort of cover to protect them from flying clag?
