oh my! Did he not see you? You were clearly alongside before entering the turn.
My rear tire was alongside his front tire! He told me in impound that 'he saw me' but went back to planning his pass on the car ahead of us and 'forgot I was there'!!! 🤨 🤔
That's a weird thing to forget!
Hi radical friends!
Awesome racing videos, all!
Me and a friend bought @Graeme's SR1 and have been going to track days. Our videos are not as exciting as the racing videos, but if someone is looking for a reference/track layout/overview - they're better than nothing at all :).
Here are videos at the tracks we've gone to. The videos are for full sessions, but at least they're queued for the start of the lap with my personal best time (so far).
Laguna Seca - 2/21/22 - 1:40.19 (forgot my gloves on my sim rig at home, also camera connection was glitchy) -
Sonoma Raceway (aka Sears Point) - 11/27/20 - 1:50.06 -
Thunderhill East - 3/6/21 - 1:58.77 (with a spin out of T2 on the immediately following lap :D) -
Thunderhill West - 4/17/22 - 1:22.13 -
Thunderhill 5-mile (aka Thunderschleife) - 10/7/2021 - 3:28.29 (hadn't loaded the 5-mile layout into AIM so track layout overlay is wacky) -
Autoclub Speedway - 10/2/21 - 1:53.59 (my 2nd time ever at that track, forgot gloves again) -
One more! Buttonwillow from this weekend (first time at that track) - did 1:55.97 in the last session.
here's my first ever drive in my car at Donington UK. 6 months in the making!
unfortunately this was the only (and i literally mean that) clear lap out of 78..... driving these cars on a general track day with road cars about is pretty pointless. i'm having to get my race licence so i can do test days instead. The expense just keeps on mounting.
first impressions:
- i'd asked the team when prepping the car to make the setup more neutral, as i can't stand understeer. Think i went too far with this and it was sketchy on throttle....need to build some understeer back into it. Turn-in was perfect, just need to sort out mid/exit.
- the SR10 (and by association SR3) steering wheel lights are useless, as they are well below the eyesight. Fortunately the AiM PDM display lights/shift light module (if it was working!) are plenty bright enough.
- getting a seat fit is critical. With my legs flopping about i just couldn't be precise with inputs....thats next on the list.
- i couldnt believe how friendly the car was over the limit. Not in the video but earlier on learning the car i was broad sideways a few times and still very recoverable. I guess the chassis is engineered well!
This year was pretty unremarkable -- I lost the clutch my first weekend in January, but after I replaced it all was well the rest of the spring. The car has a new Radical engine, and new Kinsler DBW throttles since last year.
My next event will be with ChinTrackDays at COTA in late September -- maybe I'll have some company?
@parsonsj great video! Sebring is no joke - I'm amazed by how that video looks like it's sped up at twice the speed because of all the bumps!
Current quickest lap I've managed at our local track.
Still figuring out the best way to use the brakes in some of the technical sections.
Turn 1 might be flat out, but mentally feels like a big ask.
Old Michelin slicks that came with the car, hopefully I'll see some improvement with a new set next year.
Bad luck on the bug, but it is fall and there's a ton of em out there.
Back at oulton park for a proper go, after the first time was cut short with my rectifier blowing.
Track was fully wet all morning then finally the intermittent showers stopped, the clouds broke, and over the afteroon a dry line emerged. Unfortunately didn't have time to switch back to slicks so ended the day with this still on wets..... i was also worried i might be pushing the wets too much in the dry and damaging them in some way - what are the operating temps of the hankook full wets? According to my TPMS data the rears ended the stint on 58 degrees, fronts on 46 degs (C), and 28psi Front, 30psi rear.
I think the rears were overheating/running slightly too high on rear pressure maybe?
anyway all in all...the car is just as fun and friendly in full wet as dry. Epic experience.
well......the final track day of the year. I was super lucky with the weather and it remained dry. Today was the day i finally got fully ontop of the car and what it can do, set very competitive laptimes so the journey has been worth it. Unfortunately my smartycam completely screwed itself up (that'll be another forum post probably!) and i couldn't salvage video from my best lap....but it recorded audio from my 3rd best which i was able to splice together with video from my helmet cam and the data from the PDM.
i said the last time was the final day..........could not resist another go. An opportunity came up to drive Silverstone international with other radicals, Revolution A-One's and Praga's together for cheap, so had to do it.
Sorry for the lame commentary, trying to make it more interesting for the viewer... i stay silent for the 3rd lap which was the best of the day.
1st session was rain and wet, 2nd session over an hour later was fully damp and that was this session. Then all afternoon the rain came back and i've got some cracking footage from my gopro in high res following those other prototypes with the spray streaming off them. I'll upload that soon.
Turns out the vibration I'm experiencing at the 195kph+ mark is because of the additional passenger weight causing my ride height to drop a little and that's causing the front diffuser to stall so i'm getting a porpoising effect. When i'm running on my own the car is fine and i have no vibration.
What a year its been, couldn't have run this car without the amazing help from this forum and the facebook group. Also been a huge investment with all the parts tools not to mention a trailer. And lots of learning along the way, but on track its been faultless and i've had a huge amount of fun which i think is what it's all about eh!
Finally got the car together and on the track for a weekend without little issues holding me back. Theres still a bit of set up to carry out and to redo some stuff on the wing fabrication- but overall happy with the performance. This was the first session ever really driving this car at speed and it took me a second to get comfortable, especially on these 3-4 year old tires that came on the car. I didn't want to waste the sticker set I had in the truck if I had more issues. This little beastie has potential, ride height is significantly higher than the ideal 40mm (76mm for now) and all the shock settings were @ baseline. I think there is a 43 in the car as it sits with some minor adjustments and familiarization, I know overall nasa TTU record is a 1:41 in an SR8 so im pretty happy for this time with the 1340cc.
@illwillem, great video! I really like Chuckwalla, it is a great track for a Radical. Looks like you had no traffic…Fantastic!
