Hello everyone, I am new to the radical world. I drive an SR1 and SR3 primarily out at Thermal. Just breaking in the SR3 this coming weekend. I have a desire to step up the safety of the car a bit, even if performance suffers slightly. I have been toying with the idea of having a F1 style halo with a front bar fabricated for the SR3, and/or perhaps a small lexan windshield. Has anyone attempted such an idea? What I am obviously trying to solve here is deflection of large debris. Safety isn't much of an issue when running with just radicals on a track, but when mixed in with home-built "race cars" on a track like auto club speedway I get concerned about the odd chance of a large object coming at my face at full speed. Thanks for any advice you may offer.
Hi Seth, Welcome! It is good to hear that there are some Radicals out at Thermal. I will have to come out there some time and see if I can find some Radicals to add to the Registry. 😊 Have you added your cars yet?
In your quest to improve safety you may want to try the Halo that Radical offers. It does a good job of giving some lateral support. Here is some pictures of the Radical Halo. You can also see the small lexan piece in front of the driver. This piece does a very good job of diverting the airflow over your head but it doesn't give you much improvement from debris.
People have tried different things to improve safety. Chassis SR800082 was modified with a full roll cage to be able to compete in the Pikes peak hill climb and chassis number SR300120 was modified to compete in the "One Lap of America" Series and it has a removable roof to help with driving in the rain. So there are things you can do, but keep in mind that all of these things (even the simple Radical Halo) make it a more difficult to get into and out of the car.
I have been driving Radicals in mixed groups for a while and I found one of the best things that can be done to improve safety is to have lights in the front so that other drivers see you coming up from behind. I was always most concerned with if the driver I was passing could see me and knew that I was there when I was passing them. If you are doing track days it is also a good idea to speak up at the drivers meeting and remind people that you are in a Radical that is very low and to be aware they need to look for low flying objects 😉
Thank you for the reply and the photos. My SR3 does have the factory Halo installed but I am looking for something for rollover protection or frontal impact (wedging under a car). Chassis 82 is similar to what I had in mind. Yes, it would slow the car a bit and interrupt the aero, but the tradeoff may be worth it for me personally. I will try to get some photos of the cars uploaded soon.
Seth @hamiltonseth, I believe Spring Mountain made the modification to chassis 82. I have a call into them to confirm. For your purposes you may want to consider making something like chassis 82 but have it attach at the bolt in locations for the side bars rather than welding it to the roll hoop. That way it would be removable and wouldn't hurt the resale value of the car.
Seth @hamiltonseth, I just spoke with one of my friends at Spring Mountain and he told me that the roll hoop on chassis 82 was designed by Radical and installed by One Motorsports in Las Vegas. He said that it was welded in because there was a concern that the bolts could shear. Of course this cage was designed for the Pikes peak hill climb which has very high crash standards so a bolt in solution may be acceptable for your application.
Unfortunately not! I am unsure on the whereabouts of the car now, unfortunately the owner is no longer with us.
He did have an incredible collection of cars though, 6 space frame Fiat 500's - 2 with RPE Supercharged 1300's, 2 with RPE 1585cc engines and 2 with RPE V8 engines!
Plus a Formula car with RPE Hayabusa turbo and this SR8 which he had converted in Austria.
Formula car:
V8 Car:
In the background at the start you can see one of his other cars, all the other cars were based on original Fiat 500's unlike this one.
Sorry for the complete change of topic in the thread!
reviving an old thread. I am preparing to purchase a radical SR3 and also very concerned about crash saftey.
@hamiltonseth - did you ever have a cage created for your car.
@CharleyH - This thread is about a year and a half old, do you by chance have any new or additional information about this topic. I like your idea of the bolt on cage but also understand that welding in is stronger.
on that same note, you've been running Radicals for a while, do you know of any situations where anyone has been seriously hurt or killed in a radical and what were the details. I'm sure radical on radical accident wouldn't be horrible depending on the situation. I think the real danger is armco, tire wall, or GT car.
I don't have a solution, but maybe some more food for thought. the Revolution race cars (non-radical) started with Radical style down bars, but now some have a halo/cage style:
@laz Thanks that's really helpful. If it's possible for those Revolution cars, I don't see why it couldn't work on a Radical, they seem to have a very similar layout.
