High-flying businessmen are finding new ways to get their four-wheeled thrills. Instead of fanging a Ferrari or punting a Porsche they are getting behind the wheel of the real deal: a purpose-built race car. But it's not just any race car, because the British-built Radical was designed to be registered for the road.
It cannot be certified in Australia, but the thinking behind the car is reflected in more than its bitumen-burner performance and its record as the fastest production car — yes, faster, a lot faster, than a Nissan GT-R — to lap the Nurburgring race course. It is a relatively generous two-seater that does not take a V8 Supercar budget to own, or the talent of a V8 Supercar driver to use.
But don't get the idea that the Radical is a low-powered, plastic-bodied toy or just an lookey-likey Le Mans racer with no heart. The low-slung, lightweight racer is powered by an engine from one of the fastest superbikes in the world - the 300km/h Suzuki Hayabusa.
And there is a twist. To make the Radical even faster, the engine is given the steroid treatment, growing from 1340cc to 1500cc in a move that boost power from 147 to 208 stonking kiloWatts. Applied to a car that weighs just 500 kilos — less than one third of a Porsche 911 — that means incredible bang for the buck. A Radical will fire to 100km/h in just 3 seconds. And it corners like it's painted on the road.
The cars are not cheap, priced from $120,000 to $200,000 depending on what you want and how fast you want to go, but it is still way less than one of those 911s or a Lamborghini Gallardo or the gorgeous new Ferrari 458.
It's a lot to spend on a car you can only exercise on a track, but there is a more cost-effective way to get behind the wheel, as you can lease a Radical for a year for about $30,000 - less than the cost of a new VEII Commodore. In Australia, the Radical movement has grown from humble beginnings. What started out as a bit of fun for some corporate bigwigs has turned into a full-time business.
Peter Opie, a private wealth manager to high net worth individuals, Greg Smith, a corporate advisor on $500 million to $1 billion real estate deals, and Chris Medland, who heads a large engineering firm, started with five Radicals about two years ago. They shared the cars - and the cost to buy and run them - with mates on weekend and weekday track events.
But the interest from the corporate community grew and so the trio bought more cars. Today, there are 25 Radicals in Australia. "We're a bunch of car enthusiasts who have a tiger by the tail," says Opie. According to a recent financial report, Australia is fertile ground for potential Radical drivers, as an estimated 35,000 people have $1 million or more in disposable income. "It's a lifestyle business. We supply, service and transport the cars. All the customer needs to do is turn up and drive," says Medland.
The Radical thinkers also came up with another radical idea. Because the cars are two-seaters they can conduct up-close-and-personal driver tuition and teach the essentials of race craft. "We teach people how to get the most out of their cars, bring them up to speed on track days and then help them graduate to full-blown race craft," Medland says.
And most need some help because the Radical is a radical machine. One recently smashed the lap record for a road-registered car (remembed it is approved in Britain and some European countries) at the Nurburgring, lapping the 21-kilometre course in 6 minutes 48 sec. The GT-R does it in 7 minutes 26.
Alright, the Radical that set the record was a powered by a V8 that uses Formula One components, but the regular Radical models still have blistering speed. And now they have a special race series in Australia. The Radical men have just gained approval to conduct select races with qualified race drivers in the passenger's seat to give tuition in the heat of the action. The racer gets a second set of controls so they can intervene from the passenger's side if things get out of hand.
"There's no other race format in the world that we're aware of that does this," says Medland. Radical drivers can also race overseas. "There are 16 Radical distributors around the world, so if someone wants to race at Spa Francorchamps in France, Laguna Seca in the USA or at the F1 circuit in Shanghai, we can arrange that," says Medland.
And the global economic crisis has been good for Radical. "A lot of corporate executives don't necessarily want to be seen turning up to work in a Porsche or a Bentley when economic times are tough. It's a bad look when people in the company are taking pay cuts." "But this is good, because no-one in the company sees it. It all happens away from work," says Medland.
The Radical formula is growing steadily. Next year in Australia there will be two national-level races competing with cars from other categories, but Radical expects to become a national one-make series by 2011. "It will be turn-key racing, arrive and drive. That's what people want," Medland says.
"This is the easiest way to go motor racing. The cars are seriously quick, we can teach you how to drive them properly, and you've done all this without putting wear and tear on expensive road cars."
Driving
Terrifying. That is the best way to describe what it's like to drive a Radical for the first time. Thank goodness there's an instructor in the passenger seat, although I'm questioning his judgment right now. We're flat-out through Turn One at Eastern Creek raceway in Sydney, one of the fastest corners in Australia. A good V8 Supercar driver gets through there at around 210km/h in their V8 Commodore or Falcon.
The Radical is not much slower and the instructor is pushing me to go even harder. I can hear his muffled voice through the helmet intercom as he tells me "Get off the brakes, accelerate!" This is not what instinct tells you to do at close to 200km/h in a car where the wind is screaming and that Hayabusa engine is always straining to give you more. But in this case, he's right.
It turns out I must keep the speed up for the car's wings and things to help keep us pushed down onto the road. They work like a giant invisible thumb, and provide the sort of downforce you would expect in a top-class F1-style open-wheel car. Then there are the brakes. The car is so light and has so much grip you can brake much later than you would in a normal road car.
The voice of the instructor comes through the helmet again, "Get off the brakes!", so I do and we do not crash. Amazing. Actually, I am braking way too early for the corners and not pushing nearly hard enough through them. Although the straights are a riot of noise and fury and gears.
This is Radical. And Radical. The noise is ear-splitting and the thrill is so exhilarating it challenges all of your senses. And your driving ability. It takes more than a few laps to even get close to understanding what makes the Radical work. And this is all part of the appeal.
The corporate high flyers who drive these things clearly love a thrill, but they also love a challenge. It's tough enough on your own with an instructor alongside, without thinking about a pack of 20 on a private raceday.
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