Radical does it again

  • Thread starter Thread starter dancardesigner
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You can go and buy a road legal SR8 whenever you want...
 
Famine
I don't get your point. You said:



"It" was. That exact chassis might not have been, but you can buy one identical to it.
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For some strange reason I thought you had to sell the one that actually breaks the record :dunce:

Anyway what time do you think the Dauer could achieve?

All I know is the the quickest ever lap is a 6:11 in the 956 and the 962 is newer. So I guess its quicker than the 956 in racing guise with racing slicks but with road tyres maybe a 6:30?
 
crooky369
For some strange reason I thought you had to sell the one that actually breaks the record :dunce:
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Mazda still own the 787B that won Le Mans - and Nissan still have their R390 GT1 that came third. Companies tend to keep hold of unique cars or those with unique achievements...

crooky369
Anyway what time do you think the Dauer could achieve?

All I know is the the quickest ever lap is a 6:11 in the 956 and the 962 is newer. So I guess its quicker than the 956 in racing guise with racing slicks but with road tyres maybe a 6:30?
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Who knows? It's all irrelevant though, since there's no official lap record of the Nordschleife anyway - production or otherwise.
 
I suppose it really depends on the tyres. You could put modern road legal "cheater" slicks on should they be available at the right sizes and get good results, but the Daur 962 road car did not have slick tyres. how good the tyres it had were for track use compared to racing slicks I couldn't tell you, but tyre technollogy today is much more advanced than it was then. I'd imagine the closest modern car with have to the Daur (that I can think of right now at least) is the Gumpert Apollo Sport.
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Famine
Mazda still own the 787B that won Le Mans - and Nissan still have their R390 GT1 that came third. Companies tend to keep hold of unique cars or those with unique achievements...



Who knows? It's all irrelevant though, since there's no official lap record of the Nordschleife anyway - production or otherwise.
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How come there's no official record then?

EDIT: Also has one of these ever been sold?

1999%20Toyota%20GT1_2.jpg
 
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It could be because the track uses public roads for certain sections, like Le Sarthe. I don't may be wrong but I don't recall an official lap records list for Le Sarthe either. I don't know if anyone can confirm this or not.
 
crooky369
How come there's no official record then?
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It's a public road. Some times are set with the public on it - and timing and, for that matter, recording equipment is supposed to be prohibited at these times - some are set with the road closed to all but themselves. Some times have been set for a full lap, old start/finish to old start/finish, some are set from gantry to bridge with the current main entrance/exit, some from a different entrance (since it's a public road, it actually goes places too).

Essentially, the conditions are not the same for all and, ultimately, it's not actually a track. So no official record is kept.

crooky369
EDIT: Also has one of these ever been sold?

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No. One was made and that's about it.
 
Dave A
It could be because the track uses public roads for certain sections, like Le Sarthe. I don't may be wrong but I don't recall an official lap records list for Le Sarthe either. I don't know if anyone can confirm this or not.
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But there are lap records for Monaco and other circuits that use all or parts of public roads....
 
It still amuses me that people are arguing the toss over whether the Radical is a production car, or a road car or not.

Q: Do they produce versions for road use?
A: Yes

Q: Can you register it for road use?
A: Yes

In my eyes, that makes it a production, road legal car, whichever way you try and spin it. Whether it's in the "spirit" of the rules or not is irrelevant. It meets the letter of the rules, and more so than running something like a Dauer or a Toyota GT-One would, both of which are actual race cars designed for Le Mans rather than pseudo race cars that look like LMPs.

I wonder what peoples reactions would be if it had been Westfield with their XTR? Another perfectly legal road car, and even built by a manufacturer that's well known for making road cars that happen to be excellent on track? Ditto Caterham, in fact, with a mental version of the 7? Or even Ariel with a mega-Atom?

As Famine said, where do you draw the line exactly? Would anyone disagree that an Atom or a 7 was a road car if one of those was to take the lap record at the 'Ring?
 
I think some people just consider there to be a point where the car is built as a race car first, and then they decide what it needs to be street legal. And in terms of practicality, the only real time it would get on the road is being driven to the track. Like the wannabe F1 car on Top Gear that couldn't make it over a speed bump.
 
Or the supercars (Zonda, Ford GT and something else) they almost couldn't get out of a carpark in France because of low ground clearance? If you start using other criteria you come into so many grey areas, so the only logical criteria is that you can buy and register them as road cars.

I do see where you're coming from though Eric 👍 I can understand why people think it's not a road car really, but it actually is a road car by any legal definition.

And it's all probably academic anyway as no doubt another manufacturer will be along soon with something producing a couple of thousand horsepower that looks like a regular supercar and snatch the record again. And doubtless it'll be even less suitable for road use.
 
homeforsummer
Q: Do they produce versions for road use?
A: Yes

Q: Can you register it for road use?
A: Yes
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Bottom line, this is it.

I think what got the crowd going was about the number Famine picked. A number, or quantity of "one".

They should have read this:
Famine
arbitrary figure
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I didn't think they had a strong argument, unless they could have proven otherwise.
 
They wouldn't touch the radical, not even the CLK-GTR Supersport pictured. But it would be interesting to see them on a program like TopGear should any owners feel like handing them the keys for an afternoon.
 
SR-71_Blackbird
How about records for these?
Mercedes-Benz%20CLK%20GTR%20Super%20Sport.jpg

porsche_gt1-13.jpg
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If contemporary reviews are anything to go by, they also made for poor road cars. Ironic then that the changes made to them to make them road legal, will totally compromise them as track cars. So they're neither good road cars or effective track cars now.
 
Ignoring the arguments...

The average speed (taking the 12.9 mile track) is very impressive...

Gumpert : 107.74 MPH
Radical : 113.8 MPH

Of course - The alltime record - 6:11
Porsche 956 : 125.18 MPH

C.
 
yeti
Ignoring the arguments...

The average speed (taking the 12.9 mile track) is very impressive...

Gumpert : 107.74 MPH
Radical : 113.8 MPH

Of course - The alltime record - 6:11
Porsche 956 : 125.18 MPH

C.
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And the 956 record includes a section on the main long straight that isn't included in any of the road car times. Although at 180+mph, that distance is probably covered in a couple of seconds.
 
Indeed - current "lap times" are bridge-to-gantry, as you enter the track before the bridge on Doettinger Hoehe (the 1.5 mile straight) and you leave it just after the gantry, cutting out about a mile of straight.
 
Famine
Indeed - current "lap times" are bridge-to-gantry, as you enter the track before the bridge on Doettinger Hoehe (the 1.5 mile straight) and you leave it just after the gantry, cutting out about a mile of straight.
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Not all of them, though. I certainly recall the currently accepted Megane R26.R and Focus RS times both start and stop at the proper start/finish. As is the Nissan GT-R 7'29 one. And the Corvette ZR-1 one. In fact, are you absolutely sure the current times are bridge-to-gantry?
 
The ones when the track isn't closed for the purpose, yes.
 
I happened to re-read the EVO article just last night, and it definitely mentioned bridge-to-gantry as the timing points. Whether this is true for all the recent times i don't know.
 
Well... insofar as the word "official" applies. Because of the wide variations in conditions of lap timing, there really isn't any such thing as an "official" lap record.
 

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