Some of you may recall my thread from when I purchased a Radical SR1 back in November:
https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/grm/so-i-did-something-radical/259761/page1/
The most common criticism of the SR1's in the US is "there's nowhere to race them!" They were not really classed with the major racing orgs. The UK has a dedicated series for SR1's, but here in the US you need to move up to the substantially more expensive SR3 to race in the Radical Cup series. Atlanta Motorsports Park has a house racing series with monthly one-day races and a whole class of both SR1's and SR3's where I've been having a blast. We typically have a run group of 10-16 cars come out.
Well, the team at Primal Racing (dealer and support for Radical) has been working hard to establish a race class for the Radical SR1's with the Southeastern Division of SCCA, and they finally succeeded. Last weekend we got SCCA logbooks for seven SR1's and did our first SARRC race at AMP (which incidentally, is the first time they've ever done an SCCA race at AMP).
They had us in a run group with prototypes, formula cars, and a couple Radical SR3's. We enjoyed an entire weekend of green flag racing, with no on-track incidents. The SR1's were quite competitive with the other cars,with our fastest driver only 2 seconds off the pace of the FE2 cars. There was only a 3 second pace gap between our fastest and slowest SR1 class drivers, with plenty of opportunities to mix it up with our friends.
These cars have a lot of advantages when compared to other prototype or formula cars.
- Buy-in cost. They are around $80k new, but can be regularly found used in the $45-55k range. I bought mine from Primal as a retired race school car for less than I got back when I sold my SRF.
- Running costs. They run spec Hankook tires that are about $1200 per set, but a set can get you through several race weekends and tends to age pretty gracefully. They run 93 pump gas, and I think I used 10 gallons all weekend. Brake pads can go an entire season for many racers.
- Reliability and maintenance. They are well-designed, simple, tough, modern race cars. Radical has had almost 10 years to work out the warts on these cars and so far mine has been flawless. They are well supported by a few dealers around the US and I haven't found parts cost to be worse than any other similar car.
- Fun. They are lightweight with good aero and a high-revving motor that has plenty of power for the chassis. They move around quite a bit on the treaded tires and are very fun to play with at the traction limit. Built-in video and data is great for coaching and driver development.
I would really like to see this class grow in the Southeast, and I'm looking forward to a few more SCCA races this year! Here's a few pics and some video of me running down a few buddies.
