NASA racer

THAT is a track car. Frankly 2:00 in a car with 333hp isn't very fast. We ran 2:03 with 130hp and old tires. 2:05s were 3 hour consistent fuel economy paced laps on Toyos.

Never understood why guys track such heavy cars.

Mark Dalen

They are running enduros with this car in Europe - some 24 hour events and a bunch of 1000km races. Time will tell but Radical claims to have designed it with enduros in mind. I am buying it mainly for track days, but will do some racing and the enduros look fun. Radical costs mid to high $40's - base at $41k.

As far as your damage, that is what happens when you get around those RSR and SRF guys. They are racing evenly matched cars that are built like tanks (with cheap to repair fiberglass) and the drivers are nuts - Oh yeah - I am one of those guys.

NASA racer

The fun thing about enduros is the teamwork and cameraderie. We had two cars, 4 drivers + Roger, then 4 people as a pit crew and my wife on stopwatches...all working together to make it happen. It's a whole dimension that sprint racing doesn't have.

I'd be happy to drive with ya for my share of expenses in an enduro any time!

Mark Dalen

I'll keep you posted. Maybe I can drag John/TSR out here and we can do a 3 man team for one of these. Are you listening John?

SoCalOCTT

lol..the TT weighs in around 3400 lbs. and I think we toasted our new full race brake setup

330iGuy

In a light race car, you can point and shoot. A heavy street car you gotta cajole and push.

I recently flogged a rental Pontiac Sunfire (0-60 of 11.6s) and a Chevy Malibu (0-60 of 7.6s) at Sears Point, and the much "slower" but lighter Sunfire was far more competitive.

NASA racer

hahahahahaha.

Try making a car with 0 HP carry speed all around a track with NO torque and unfavorable gearing at all times with an open diff and FWD and tell me that story again. I can't think of one race car that I've ever driven (even Formula Super Vees and Atlantics) that you "pointed and shooted"...a car on the edge is a car on the edge and the higher the limits are the harder it is to balance it on that edge.

"Cajoling and pushing" a rental car around is hardly anything like trying to extract 10/10ths in a race car...Not sure if you are implying that somehow a pig of a street car with high HP, traction control, modern electronics and ABS is harder to drive than a race car...hope you don't actually believe that. There is a world of difference between driving around a track and actually driving competitively.

I love it when track-day guys talk to me about "talent" hehehehe. In the driving world, there's a measurement of talent and that is in trophies and championships.

NASA racer

you have to spend exponentially to counter-act the performance penalties of weight.

There are also the penalties in regards to the life of wheel bearings, suspension bushings etc...etc.

We go through a set of wheel bearings per season on a 2000lb car...must be hell for a 3400lb car.

330iGuy

The rental Neon and Sunfire I've flogged at the track in the last couple of months were all of that and more. We're talking about FWD automatics with fewer than 130 horses and on some of the crappiest street tires you can imagine. But they were both a lot of fun to drive and very "easy" to drive hard at the track. The Neon even kept up with a few E30 M3s through T2-T5 at Thunderhill in the "fast" run group at a BMW CCA event. The Sunfire posted better times than the other Pontiac at a time trial at Sears Point, a Trans Am with 400 horses...and the other automatic at the event...a Lexus IS300 with 221 horses:

http://www.speedventures.net/event_results_db.asp?

My regular car, the 330i, has 193 hp to the rear wheels, 3400 pounds, an open diff, and, speaking of unfavorable gearing, it's an automatic. It turned 2:15s at Thunderhill on A032Rs on a completely stock suspension.

330iGuy

Simply, a heavy RWD car is a lot harder to drive than a light FWD