RE: Radical Smashes Nordschleife Record

[Oilchange]

lots

[Stu - B]

Semantics..

Press release on page 1 of this thread states that the Radical is a production car. It is.

Is the car road-legal? Unlikely due to features such as Flemke pointed out, as it simply would not have passed the IVA test in the condition it claimed the record in.

Great achievement anyway and as others have pointed out the subsets of fastest around "the ring" could go on forever.

EDIT: Actually it is not semantics, the press release is wrong as heading states "road legal"...

Edited by Stu - B on Friday 21st August 22:16

[Oilchange]

I think if Porsche had got the record in a 'new' Carrera Gt or GT2 no one would have blinked an eye. But, because some upstart Brit company that only makes 100 cars does it, its just RUDE. We cant have that!!!! You must spend lots on a fast car and bow down to a leviathan car company. rubbish imo.

Good on them and I hope the record stands for years

[Oilchange]

Road legal as in 'they drove it to the track for the UK' road legal.
Just to clarify

Stu - B said:

Semantics..

Press release on page 1 of this thread states that the Radical is a production car. It is.

Is the car road-legal? Unlikely due to features such as Flemke pointed out, as it simply would not have passed the IVA test in the condition it claimed the record in.

Great achievement anyway and as others have pointed out the subsets of fastest around "the ring" could go on forever.

EDIT: Actually it is not semantics, the press release is wrong as heading states "road legal"...

Edited by Stu - B on Friday 21st August 22:16

[Chris Eyre]

flemke said:

That's a very interesting document you've linked to. Thanks.

Indeed, I was speaking to a man from VOSA at the 'Ring just last weekend about unrelated matters, and he'd pointed me to it. It has replaced SVA.

flemke said:

Yes, we've got surprisingly off-track (no pun intended) on this thread. No one has tried to say that the SR8LM isn't a great car or good value. Rather, it's just not right to take a car that is 98% a racing car and compare it in its racing mode to cars that are 15% racing cars. Just wait 'til the Caparo guys come over and set a new "production car", "road-legal" "record". Just what we need, more complete nonsense.
They should put the Radical on slicks, do an even faster lap, tell us about and show us video of that lap, and that would be great. We can all figure out that, on track-day tyres, the car would be a bit slower, but that part wouldn't matter.
As it is, Radical use track-day tyres for the lap and then blow their own trumpet about "production car record" and "road-legal", when those things have no meaningful relationship to either the car itself or what the car can do.

I'm all for context and I can't pick the point at which the plot was lost, but somewhere we have dumbed downn the definition of 'production' and we both know that SVA/IVA is a cross-border abuse of road registration, unreplicable under TUV.

The FIA's 'production car' definitions are useful, though 2,500 is clearly unrealistic for supercars.

http://www.fia.com/en-GB/sport/regulations/Pages/I...

There are a number of features of the car where I struggle to see how it has gained road registration, it lacks type approval on a lot of parts (which may not actually be necessary under IVA). I cannot see how the knife-like wing endplates of the SR8's would get into mainstream production - pedestrian issues - and recall how the Lotus Exige Mk2 had its rear wing literally clipped when being put into production for related reasons.

I don't have the comparable low-volume European registration methods to compare against though.

At the moment, the rules, and the notion of production, are being ignored to such an extent that I cannot see what stops an F3000/F1 car being bodged through IVA. I mean why hang around with a car that is 98% race car, when we can have 99.9%? Cue 'Ring laptime open goal!

It's just whether someone is determined enough to do it, but where there's motorsport, there's generally determination. I hear there's a couple of BMWs coming up at the end of the year...!

There are those who cannot see what this exercise is about, and misguidedly credit it as an achievement in a road legal production car context. Plainly it isn't, a damn fast lap though it is, and credit to Vergers for his undoubted skills.

As you've said, it's highly disingenuous marketing.

What's more, it is preceded with similar record attempts, similar marketing, and simultaneous talk of building production cars to justify the 'record'. History shows however that few futher road legal cars ever materialise from Radical's workshops. I've been looking for an SR3 Turbo for a while, but I can't get one for love or money!

Much as we can be sure this SR8 LM will be paraded around the glossies, pictured in high streets, the harsh reality is that the engine requires a rebuild after 30 hours and the gearbox requires inspection after every event. Who would use a car like this on the road?

These are not attributes of production cars in the accepted sense.

The SR8's brochure makes for some agonising reading for anyone jusitifying running a car like this in on the road, as opposed to trailering:

http://www.radicalsportscars.com/uploads/range/dow...

I particularly like page 3, paragraph 2. Also the starting procedure (complete with laptop), the restarting procedure (p4), and the component lifing chart (p11).

[flemke]

Oilchange said:

lots

Good.

Would you mind giving us your estimate, from your track day experience, of the % of Radicals that are driven to the circuit and the % that are trailered there, and the % of Porsches (for example) that are driven and the % that are trailered there.

Cheers.

[Oilchange]

Its irrelevant. Half the Clios/M3/Rover220/Caterham/ etc etc are trailered. Most could easily be driven except they are uncomfortable/no roof and you can't put all the extra gear/wheels in the back without grounding out.

Also, I would drive my road legal Lotus to the track if I could afford a trailer and a car to tow it. I can't, so I tolerate the poor ride/extra wear on track tyres, (road legal ones)

The Radical is a road registered car, was driven to the track and broke the record. Not just by a fraction but by a huge margin. When 911 or a Gallardo etc does it, fine. They get the cudos. until then RADICAL!.

Its just that there are too many people knocking them as they took the time to read the rules and made them work for them. Colin Chapman did this and was very successful. So much so that they made up rules to exclude him from the 24LM race and he pulled out, never to return. Its tantamount to pure jealousy, frankly.

We are our own worst enemies really...

Edited by Oilchange on Friday 21st August 22:37

[flemke]

Oilchange said:

I think if Porsche had got the record in a 'new' Carrera Gt or GT2 no one would have blinked an eye. But, because some upstart Brit company that only makes 100 cars does it, its just RUDE. We cant have that!!!! You must spend lots on a fast car and bow down to a leviathan car company. rubbish imo.

Good on them and I hope the record stands for years

I am afraid that the only "rubbish" in your post is your paranoid presumption that one's scepticism derives from the fact that the Radical is British and produces relatively small numbers. Perhaps you have forgotten, but some of us here expressed similar doubts about the validity of "records" previously claimed by the "Edo" Porsche and the Donkervoort, to name but two.

In '96-8, Porsche produced the GT1, which was mostly a racing car. It was enough of a racing car to win Le Mans. They had to make a handful for homologation, and they were road-legal from the factory. If Porsche had taken one of them and tried to set a NS "production car" record, of which the car certainly would have been capable at the time, do you think that we here would have been applauding the fact? Of course we wouldn't, because the disconnection between the GT1, which was designed to race but needed a few tweeks to make it road-legal (and was so even in Germany), and the many road cars whose NS times have been measured and compared, is almost total.

[Chris Eyre]

Oilchange said:

Its tantamount to pure jealousy, frankly.

We are our own worst enemies really...

I think you'll find it's nothing at all to do with jealousy.

Edited by Chris Eyre on Friday 21st August 22:44

[flemke]

Oilchange said:

Its irrelevant. Half the Clios/M3/Rover220/Caterham/ etc etc are trailered.

Yeah, right. My friend, there are not enough trailers in Britain to carry "half the Clios, M3s, Rover 220s, Sevens, etc."

If you want to argue that my question was misconceived or irrelevant, fair enough, but it does you no favours to assert something that is patently ridiculous.

[Oilchange]

So what if the GT1 would have broken the record? Did anyone try? I suspect the owners were too afraid of dinking their investement. Sad if you ask me, they should have got a factory driver to try.

Radical did, it might not look like the Insignia your average Joe drives down the M4 but as I said its road legal. Thats what counts.

Maybe Jealousy is a bit strong, envious maybe. The LM organisers obviously were when they made up rubbish to prevent Chapman winning which he was probably set to.

[flemke]

Chris Eyre said:

There are those who cannot see what this exercise is about, and misguidedly credit it as an achievement in a road legal production car context. Plainly it isn't, a damn fast lap though it is, and credit to Vergers for his undoubted skills.

Very well-put, in both parts.

Chris Eyre said:

The SR8's brochure makes for some agonising reading for anyone justifying running a car like this in on the road, as opposed to trailering:

http://www.radicalsportscars.com/uploads/range/dow...

I particularly like page 3, paragraph 2. Also the starting procedure (complete with laptop), the restarting procedure (p4), and the component lifing chart (p11).

But surely the Radical is a road car, because the motorised sofa is a "road car". If you don't believe me, just ask some of the authorities on this thread.

[Oilchange]

Exactly. The sofa is a road legal car.

Maybe not used for the daily commute in the rain but nonetheless if it broke the record it would be legal.

Do you drive the Mc daily?
I don't drive my Lotus daily and have a runabout for the shopping.

Enter the Radical. drive to the track, whizz about, break a record. Drive back.
job done

[k-ink]

Perhaps it's time the NS records were split into three categories:

1. Unlimited race cars
2. Road legal track cars
3. Everyday road cars



And to clarify, class 3 minimum specs should at least be:

a. Pass all safety tests major manufacturers have to meet
b. Traverse all roads and normal everyday obstacles
c. Operate in all weathers

[flemke]

Oilchange said:

So what if the GT1 would have broken the record? Did anyone try? I suspect the owners were too afraid of dinking their investement. Sad if you ask me, they should have got a factory driver to try.

Radical did, it might not look like the Insignia your average Joe drives down the M4 but as I said its road legal. Thats what counts.

Maybe Jealousy is a bit strong, envious maybe. The LM organisers obviously were when they made up rubbish to prevent Chapman winning which he was probably set to.

That incident at Le Mans - which I do not recall a single person here on PH ever having defended - happened 47 years ago. And I suppose that you've got a grudge against Porsche because of the war that ended 64 years ago.

[Chris Eyre]

Oilchange said:

Exactly. The sofa is a road legal car.

Maybe not used for the daily commute in the rain but nonetheless if it broke the record it would be legal.

Could you explain what is 'production' about a sofa car, and how you would distinguish it from a non-production sofa car?

Cheers

[Oilchange]

got me there. too much wine.

[Oilchange]

No, no grudge at all, they are just the ones that often put up contenders, having the track on their doorstep and all. Should have included Nissan for their GTR and a few others. I wonder, if Radical had a GPS operated track code that is activated at the N'ring etc would they have revved to 15000 rpm, busted the record, got all the glory then simply junked the engine as scrap after...




That incident at Le Mans - which I do not recall a single person here on PH ever having defended - happened 47 years ago. And I suppose that you've got a grudge against Porsche because of the war that ended 64 years ago.

[/quote]

[Speedy11]

flemke said:

because the motorised sofa is a "road car". If you don't believe me, just ask some of the authorities on this thread.

If the sofa is not a road car, then what is it? and what part of it makes it not a road car? If it passes the VOSA SVA/IVA test and DVLA give it a V5 then it is a road car whether you like it or not.

[PascalBuyens]

budala said:

PascalBuyens said:

budala said:

Congratulations to Radical !
If I bought a Radical in France, no way to register it...( I tried !)

Anyway bravo to Radical and Vergers.

Edited by budala on Thursday 20th August 22:33

There is... Register it in UK for one day, then bring it to France. EU Laws force them to accept it once it's been road registered in a EU country. How do I know? I sold my Honda Type R engined Elise to a French guy, using that law...

Edited by PascalBuyens on Friday 21st August 07:04

Absolutely...wrong !

To register in european countries a registered car in UK, the car must have an EU certificate otherwise you have
to be agreed by the national "SVA" ( la DRIRE, ex service des Mines en France).
Your car (Honda) could have been accepted but believe me, the Rad hasn't this certificate (too expensive
for a small company) and no way to register it in France.

I had exactly the same problem with "my" Ultima GTR. It is still registered in UK and I'm not the official
owner otherwise i would have to register it in France (impossible except with "money").
And the official owner must be a foreigner for France and not living in France...

Oh, so you're telling me that I spent 1,5 year for nothing to register the HONDA engined Elise in Belgium, then have all the papers redone to sell it to France (my ex-Elise is the ONLY one that has a "pink slip" showing a 2.0 147kW enigne with a six speed gearbox). Believe me, I know what I'm talking about, when it comes down to registering a car proberly. And just like I said, IF you register the car in the UK, even for ONE day, France is obliged to accept the car based on the fact that a car homologated in any EU country can be driven anywhere in the EU...