On December 11th The Radical Sportscar Registry was invited by Radical North America and Spring Mountain Racing to attend the North America Premier / Debut of the 2021 Radical SR10. After a full day of Racing Tom Drewer from Radical North America Presented the car to an excited group of club members, and then Justin “JJ” Johnson, Spring Mountains test driver, took the car out on the track for some demonstration Laps. The car is amazingly fast and is capable of going 0 to 60 MPH in 2.4 seconds which is .4 seconds faster then the legendary SR8’s. Zero to 60 times are an important measure of performance but the true test is a comparison of lap times, and the SR10 is already producing faster lap times then the SR8! In addition to being blindingly fast the engine overhaul intervals are stretched to 80 hours from the recommended 40 hours for the SR8 and SR3 which makes the SR10 and amazing performance bargain.
I had a chance to discuss the SR10’s performance with JJ and he said that Spring Mountain usually does considerable suspension tuning on new models before getting the optimum performance, but he said that he is extremely impressed with the SR10’s performance already. He said that in the slower speed corners that the SR10 is able to be tossed around like and SR3 and that the car is able to get the EcoBoost’s 425hp to the ground efficiently coming out of the corners and produces tremendous acceleration down the straights. The only driving challenge the Spring Mountain team was having with the car was that it is so fast that it was getting airborne on a section of the track.
At first glance the bodywork has a strong resemblance to other cars in the Radical Stable, and this is for good reason. The rear and center bodywork, as well as the mirrors are from the SR3XX while the front bodywork is from the Rapture. The SR10 / Rapture nose looks similar to the SR8 however it is different in that it has larger openings to feed the bigger Radiators. One of the most striking changes from the outside of the car is the redesigned sidepods which have large integrated air scoops to feed the necessary amount of cooling air to the rear radiators.
The cockpit is shared with the new SR3XX and uses the AiM Technologies Power Distribution Module (PDM) that is linked to the Controller Area Network (CAN) to provide telemetry to the AiM Multi-function Formula steering wheel. This system puts a tremendous amount of information and adjustability literally at the driver’s finger tips. The AiM Formula steering wheel has an integrated LCD display that show the RPM, gear indicator, shift light and has a blue dial which allows the display to be changed to different display formats to fit driver preferences, and to show additional information such as brake bias, TPS, etc.. The Green dial on the steering wheel is used to adjust engine and gearbox mapping. And the red dial can be used with the optional power steering system to control the amount of steering assistance.
The seats have been redesigned to provide additional support and comfort and are available in dual seating or a center mounted single seat.
The car is powered by a Radical Performance Engines-Ford 2261cc EcoBoost engine with large custom Garrett turbocharger that provides 425 hp and 380ftlbs of torque. The power is fed to the tires through a paddle shifted six speed Hewland TMT 208 transmission that was originally designed for the FIA F2 race cars and an automatic torque biasing limited slip differential.
A car capable of these speeds needs ample stopping power. The SR10 uses large 300mm floating brake rotors to ensure the car can stop as well as it accelerates.
