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.
Hi @dudical26, There are a couple of guys that are working on halo structures for their cars and when they are complete they may be able to help you add one. Both of these guys (one near Nashville and the other in Europe) are both building cars to race at Pikes peak so they will be very stout. I contacted a friend at Radical to see if they could provide the drawings for the previous Pikes Peak roll bar, but they don't believe the drawing is still around.
As pictured the new Revolutions have a Halo and last week Phil sent me a great video showing the value of it. At the F1 support race one of the Revolutions broke too late and slid into the side and over the top of one of the other Revolutions. The Halo definitely helped in that situation.
With that said, I am not personally aware of anyone that has been injured in a Radical where a Halo would have helped. But the added safety would be nice. The challenge for many of the races is that the added safety comes with extra weight. For a track day cars the difference would be minimal but for racing it is not desirable to add weight so high on the car.
I got your "Ask Phil" submission and I have sent it to him. I will post his response when I get it. And it will likely include a video 🙂
@charleyhradicalsportscarregistry-com
Are the current Halo's under development, being designed/built with the help of the factory?
I'm at the crossroads of being ready to purchase a radical but also deciding what level of risk I want to accept. My challenge is understanding just how the Radical compares to my current race car, a Spec Miata with full cage and all safety gear. How would you think about the comparison. Obviously the HALO would help to lower the risk level, but what does that mean in the overall context of the safety of the Radical.
Regarding weight penalty, in the link that Adam posted, Phill said the HALO only added a few KG because it also replaced the sidebars. My plan to is race the radical on a club level. I agree the weight and placement of the weight aren't ideal but the field at my local track isn't so incredibly tight that a few KG are going to make the difference. Ideally the HALO could be bolt on and swapped with normal side bars if I decide to compete in the Blue Marble cup and I want to accept a different risk level.
You mentioned the 2 cars under development now for HALO construction, any idea on when they'll be finished. I'm ready to pull the trigger on a new SR3 XX from my regional dealer, do you think it would make sense for me to speak to the factory directly about building a double HALO like the Revolution car? I don't think I need the full Pikes Peak welded job, I'm not planning on falling off any cliffs 🙂
For me the two things go together, I wouldn't want to buy the car if I can't get comfortable with the safety level.
@dudical26, Everyone needs to evaluate the level of risk they are willing to take. In my opinion Radicals are very robust and quite safe. When I got my first Radical my wife was very supportive because she wanted me to get a race car that would be safer that the Corvette I was driving at the time. I am not aware of anyone that has been injured in a Radical and although I like the idea of a Halo I always felt safe in my car. The worst case I have seen is @tommymills picture where a Porsche decided he wanted to take the apex despite the fact that Tommy was already there. This was an extremely unusual situation. Tommy can share the details of what happened.
Regarding the two halo's that are being built, they are not factory supported efforts and and being done by race teams. I don't know when they will be finished but they both plan to compete at next years race.
I am a very risk averse person by nature and I likely wouldn't add a Halo to my car if one were available. I think the current design is very good and provides a lot of protection. But if you want a Halo I am sure a local roll bar builder could build you a nice custom one that could bolt in.
Like @dudical26 I came from tin top racing experience and I considered the different safety profile before going open top (and buying my Radical).
There is definitely increased risk when running with bigger cars. Where I race (S Korea), we tend to run in our own sessions, but we do occasionally mix it up with bigger cars when dedicated sessions don't work out. I'm extra cautious around the bigger vehicles because of closing speeds, but it's also in the back of my mind that I'm definitely on the losing end if there is contact.
In a single make Radical race, it's unlikely but a car could end up on top of another one. The recent F1 Hamilton/Verstappen car stacking at Monza is a good example of a halo avoiding driver injury in that scenario.
It's a grim story, but a Radical racer died at Lime Rock Park in 2005 when they collided with a larger, spun car. This is the kind of freak accident that it's hard to avoid. https://www.vwvortex.com/threads/road-race-death-at-lime-rock.2207744/
If a Revolution style halo was available as an add on, I'd probably order it. I'm not compelled enough to go have my own fabbed though ... hmmm. I guess that's where my risk evaluation ends up: not worried enough to go out of my way, but if it was convenient to mitigate the risk I'd do it without hesitation.
G'day @dudical26 - there are some 'conical' attachment points (4 of them), one at each end of the factory 'angled sidebars'. These types of joints are typical in chassis designs, and have a bolt through the middle that simply clamps the male/female cones together, while the conical mating surfaces carry all the load through the joint.
My advice would be to get something completely new fabricated that picks up these same points... and more importantly don't rely on any type of 'clamped joint' that doesn't have very high load capacity. Otherwise all your hard work will just look like it will work, and when the load comes onto the structure the bolted joints just slip/rotate/fail.
The beauty of using the 4 existing attachment points is that the car chassis has been designed to take load through these exactly locations... not in between, or some other random spot. It also means you will not have to modify the chassis or bodywork at all (and the car can be returned to 'stock' in a matter of 15 minutes or less - simply 4 bolts)
From these 4 factory attachments points it would be extremely easy to fabricate a set of bars that rise up from the front lower points (just in front of the cockpit opening) to above the front of the cockpit ( a steeper rise than the factory sidebars), then level off and go parallel to the ground until they reach the top rear attachment points onto the main roll hoop. So effectively a pair of new 'bent' sidebars. Once these were installed, the whole structure could then be stiffened and finished by welding in a crossbar between these two new sidebars at the 'kink' (in a similar location to where the top edge of an imaginary windscreen would be). I think if this was done correctly it would give you the added protection you are thinking about... and could be removed as a single structure if required (for instance to get the factory seat out of the car you need to remove the sidebars....)
.. at least that's where I would start my design....
What I like about the Radical is how quickly it is able to shed energy in an accident situation.
Someone mentioned a spec Miata, which I think is a terrific track car. The lightest car I could find weighed ~2100 lbs fully dressed without driver. An SR3 is about 900 lbs lighter than that. If in a situation the miata was doing 115 mph, for the same situation a Radical was doing 130 mph, the Radical still has 30% less momentum. Increase the Radical speed to 145 mph and there is still a 24% advantage to the Radical.
Meaning the forces to get someone stopped in an accident are lower. I know this doesn't have much bearing on the reason for a halo cage but just something else to think about regarding the safety of the cars.
The 2022 sr3 and sr10 offer a halo now
"Available on a Radical for the first time, is an optional halo. Well-known in open-wheel motorsport, the safety structure sits above the driver’s head to protect from impact. Radical has designed the structure in conformance with FIA specifications, with the aim of keeping customers safer out on track. Additional enhancements include a new raised steering column to aid ergonomics and improve driver visibility, an optional power steering upgrade and a larger driver’s seat for the centre drive configuration. "
https://www.radicalsportscars.com/news/radical-2022-sr10-sr3-xx
I'm told that this should retrofit on pre-2022 cars.
Feel like this needs a bump. Anyone get a price on the new 2022 Radical supplied optional halo retro fitted to an older model?
@bluefunelement I recently chatted with someone from Radical who hinted that the halo was being redesigned to be less boxy, but wouldn't commit to anything on retrofit possibilities.
I haven't seen one in person... has anyone seen a new car from the factory with a halo?
I'm still in the mindset of "if I can get a retrofit for my sr3 rsx, I'll be buying one".
I don’t know for sure if these will be able to be retrofit on older cars but I suspect that it won’t work. The reason I say that is because it is hard to make a welded structure with four hard mounting points fit up consistently with another welded structure unless both were designed and built to fit together. Unless the chassis welding jig has the hard tooling points for those mounting points it is likely that the halos won’t fit up properly. I haven’t seen the welding jigs that Radical uses, but since in the past there was no requirement for all four points to be precisely aligned in the past it isn’t likely that they are. With that said, I haven’t seen the Halo in person so if there is adjustability between the two pairs of mounting points, they it could be backwards compatible. I am just speculating here…
Based on Radical's Facebook post earlier this month highlighting the new features for the SR10, the halo wasn't one of them. So the redesign hypothesis seems plausible.
new halo announced today:
https://www.radicalmotorsport.com/news/radical-halo-inspired-cockpit-safety-structure
Definitely looks better than the first version although I would be staring directly into that bar with my height.
Nope, I was wanting the prior box similar to Revolution, oh well
@clark-darrah everybody who saw this initial pics had the same reaction, especially for big americans. It was already re changed and raised from those promo shots. Attached is a screenshot from radical instagram post showing first car leaving the factory with it and you can see its raised.
Radical New York, Servicing The North East
631-974-4379
www.GroupARacingTeam.com
