Insight - Quick, quick, stall

Radicals are very driveable and a blast on the track – once you get them going, that is…

When you’ve never driven on a particular circuit in anger before, it helps to have a passenger ride first, just to get an idea of lines, gearchanges and so on.

You can imagine my apprehension then at being sent straight out in Radical’s PR6 sports-racer for my first laps of Brands Hatch’s legendary Indy circuit. I cruise down the pitlane, ease onto the track and two KTM X-Bows and an SR3 scream past. Blimey, that first corner’s quick. I tentatively squeeze the throttle and, wham, my stomach gets left behind at the bottom of Paddock Hill Bend and I’m already at Druids.

After five laps of weaving on and off what I think is the racing line, I get my head in gear and work out that as racing cars handle, this is about as good as it gets. Back in the pits I jump into the SR8 and am warned that the car is “very, very fast”.

“What, PR6 fast?”

“No mate, rocketship fast.”

With this cheerful confidence-inspiring nugget lodged in my by now frazzled brain, I set off. And stall. And stall again. Eventually I get to the end of the pitlane, forget all words of warning and put my foot to the floor. My God, this is fast. Once the revs build up the noise and speed are intoxicating, so much so that I have no qualms about screaming merrily into my helmet while thundering down the pit straight.

These cars really are high-performance racers and not for the faint-hearted, but the wonderful thing about them is that they are very driveable – even if you do stall an embarrassing number of times before reaching the pit exit.