Radical SR8

Not sure, lots of regs still not out yet. Gonna get a practice day in before season start though to finish running engine in and remind myself about the car. Donny are doing a few 'noisy' days so might go there for a change, not been for ages due to normal noise restrictions.

 

Last year, did 7 race events in the end and a few practices. Probably do similar this year.

 

New 'end 2020' belts fitted. Grr. Makes me mad as there is nothing whatsoever wrong with the 'old' 'end 2016' ones. Half a day job as the seat has to come out to get to the fixings. Two of the seat bolts are just impossible to get to. Lots of hand skin lost in process.

New front diffuser/ splitter going on today. Then I think we are ready to roll again

 

Ger is a really lovely man, and has a fleet of beautiful cars, along with his brother too. Magazine feature(d) stuff.
Forestry and Tarmac rallying too.
They always have TOC Utilities on the front.

 

New front splitter / diffuser fitted. Looks great. New skid blocks underneath too.



And added graphics to engine cover



And....saw this for sale. The SPA Judd. Love this car. Ex-Leyton House F1 Judd v8 in it 55K





More here:

http://www.cheshireclassiccars.co.uk/competition-cars-for-sale/1991-spa-judd

 

Yeh these look good, big tyre that on a 10.5" rim



And the more CGTI relevant front 15" on a 8" rim - '200' nominal size but infact 230mm wide.



Very nice looking tyre these Hankook Z217 wets

 

They`ll shift a few litres ... do they need `scrubbing in` prior to use ?

 

Hankook say:

The longevity and consistency of the grip level can be increased by properly scuffing a new set of racing tires.it is very important not to run hard for an entire session on new tires. Think of it like breaking in a new engine, or bedding in new brakes. To scuff a set of tires, start by taking one or two moder- ately paced laps to gradually bring the tires up to operat- ing temperature, and then run one hard lap followed by a cool down lap. The ideal situation would be to stop and remove the tires from the car, and allow them to cool down to ambient temperature before running them again. When running an entire session on a new set of tires without stopping, one should still follow the scuffing procedure at the beginning of the session before turning laps at a fast pace. its also very important to run a slower lap at some point in the middle of the session to allow the tires to cool off before running hard laps again.

http://www.mk-racing.cz/download/hankook_katalog.pdf

 

Interesting info / tech. in that catalogue ...

 

New race series launched for top end sportscars, UK Prototype Cup.

For LMP3 type cars.

http://www.prototypecup.com/index.html

 

Your car shares so much with a racing kart! I did not realise it had skid blocks!

 

it handles like a big kart. a 430hp kart.

 

Awesome day today at Donny for unsilenced RMA trackday. Not been to Donny since noise police got involved, last time I think was a Club GTI day. Gotta be 5 or 6 yrs ago. Much more info soon but properly enjoyed it playing with some awesome supercar and race tackle. Donny is really flowing track, more so than Oulton. Good to see Jabbasport Luke who was supporting a BMW Enduro racer. More soon. Knackerd.

 

https://www.facebook.com/pg/RMATrackDays/photos/?tab=album&album_id=972001936165384

pictures

 

Ok, so after a long winter, it was good to get out again. Last time I drove the car was October so probably something like 5 months since last outing. Lots had been rebuilt and serviced over winter so time to finish running engine in, scrub wets in, bed clutch in,system check etc. Much of racing is about preparation and organisation so treated this day like a pretend race day to check ALL things....eg discovered that towbar had siezed over winter....better to find out now rather than on 1st race day.

Have never been on an RMA day before but opportunity to do Donny on an unsilenced day was too good to miss.

Weather forecast was ok which was a relief given all rain we have had. Arrived at Donny plenty early and found I was sharing a garage with a Lambo Gallardo Performante Spyder...wow.....one of only 25 in UK. Nice fella who owned it too, petrolhead, so good craic was going to be had. Rest of paddock was more like a British GT event, had to be at least 20 artics and garages were mostly full of teams doing some pre season tests. Countless Ferraris and Porsche GT3RS, Audi R8 GTs, amazing tackle.

After a quick briefing, time to get out there. Had prefitted new Hankook wets to scrub in whilst was doing final stages of engine running in. Had to keep engine to 9K rpm max for about 5 or 6 laps, then shpuld be ok. Was even out of practice getting into and out of car, order of helmet/belts on etc so good to remember all this again. Went out and car was like driving on jelly with new wets on a dry track. Anyhow, kept out of everyones way for a few laps and got it done. Back in and slicks on....time to go play.

Went out and started to ramp it up lap by lap. Few cars coming past me but bit by bit upping the pace and remembering the lines. Driving standard was excellent, more like a test day than a normal track day.

Third session started lapping pretty quick, only a couple cars faster now, another sr8 and a super fast ferrari gt car. GT3RS's passed with relative ease and had a good run with a Audi R8 GT car which I passed eventually coming out of Redgate. Many of the GT type cars have a lot of straight line shove but the Radical eats them alive on the brakes. Very interesting stuff. Will try and put some of footage up on youtube as followed some great looking cars.

Gotta say that the SR8 is one hell of a car and performance per is very good indeed comsidering what most the cars on this trackday cost, several at way over 150-200K.

Nothing fell off and nothing leaked so job done. Rob check and Radical check complete. Now time to wash it and ready for race season

'Ave it!

 

Hi Rob,
very interesting posts, interesting to follow. I got an SR8 since half a year now.
I saw your post about your engine preheater and I think about installing one on mine.

Would you mind sharing some pictures with me of your installation, specially where you connected your hot and cold line?

 

Was great to see and speak to you Rob, The radical looks a awesome bit of kit! we had a cv joint fail on the propshaft on the bmw which cut our day short unfortunately, we still had a good amount of running in the morning tho and i was getting some good time in the car!

Good luck with this year and hopefully i will see you at curborough :-)

 

You must have been going some, yet it looks so flat and composed!