1500cc Radical at Spa Belgium
SPA from another prospective.
Friday morning we had a 2 hour practice session. When someone put down oil just after Malmedy the driver pitched it into the gravel traps. The pit crew waited without knowing what happened just that our car was late. Some time later the car showed up in the pits with the driver saying “I ran out of ideas, road, and talent all at the same time”. So up to the paddock to clean the rocks out of the car. James, the Radical mechanic, was surprised that Nancy was cleaning up the car with us. I told him to keep it quite as she thinks this is normal to help clean up. Not much information on the handling of the car.
The first qualification was Friday afternoon. After the session the debrief showed that we had high speed under steer and low speed under steer. The low speed turn was good but mid corner and exit under steer was the problem. So not content to leave things alone, I decided to change the rear bar to a stiffer one, lower the wing one hole, remove 2 clicks of rear rebound and add 2 clicks of rebound to the front. The wing was for the high speed problem, the bigger bar was for the mid corner under steer. Removing rear rebound would keep more front inside weight during roll in. Adding front rebound would slow the weight transfer to the rear during pickup of the throttle. The front rebound would also keep more inside front weight during de-roll.
Saturday a.m. was the second qualifying session. There was quite bit of fog at the top of Eau Rouge. After 3 laps I called Nancy in as seeing her back end loose going into the top of Eau Rouge into the fog was too much for ME. She said the car was quite good at low speed and high speed was ok but “A BIT LOOSE AT HIGH SPEED”. She also had a coming together wheel to wheel at Stavelot at about 145mph, which spun her around. She pitted for a look see and all was ok. Not a scratch on the body, just one rim a little bent and one whisker missing.
The first race was Sunday a.m. and I had slotted the wing adjustments so that the wing could be run between flat and full up, always change something! She started 17th and had moved up to about 10th when we called her in for what I hate to call a pit stop. We took so long to put fuel in and get Nancy back into the car that people that came to watch the stop got bored and wandered off. 2 minutes and 16 seconds got her out in 25th and she worked back to 16th or 17th. However, she got down to the 2:29’s, which was about 3 seconds off the fastest lap all weekend.
The second race she started 17th and had worked up to 9th prior to pitting. Her crew had gotten the idea by then by watching the other people. We had to fuel as the Supersports would have run out of fuel. I had James fill the fuel can to the top and plug in and count 5 by thousands. We had also put bungies on the seat belts so they would stay out of the way getting Nancy back in. Also, had Nancy get out the left side of the car so that we would not look like the 3 stooges running into one another like the first stop. A yellow had come out just prior to pitting (we planned that!!) so got her back out in 4th. As we had told people all weekend that we would let them through as it was a point’s fight for them. So she slid back to some where between 6th and 10th.
There was not a dry eye in the house with Nancy on the podium and the US National anthem being played. James was more nervous during the weekend than I was. During the last race after the pit stop he looked over at me and said “ she sure has big balls”. I said “James you have know how big they are”.
BEST WEEKEND WE HAVE EVER HAD. The car was a joy to work on and was very responsive to changes that we had made. The engine was tired to the point that I think that if we had a 1500 in good shape we could have given them a run for the first 3 places.
Ted and Nancy James
Nancy James
Unregistered User
(5/12/01 5:17 pm)
Fabulous Race Car
I must tell you what a thrill it was to drive the Radical Super Sport at Spa Belgium. It is the finest race car I've ever driven fast right from the start. The cars are extremely well built with a lot of saftey features in mind. I saw a number of them in accidents during the weekend, but there was very little damage done to the cars, and all of the drivers walked away without being hurt. The track is extremely fast and a real challange to learn to do well. If you watch the F1 race in September, and watch the in car shots, you'll get some idea of the speeds that we were seeing. The Pro Sports and Super Sports (1300 & 1500cc) cars were turning in excess of 160 MHP in places.
If you're thinking of getting into CSR, this is the car to have! Nobody does it better!
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