[color:#000099]_Day Member Radical Sports Car Owners Banned from RMA Track Days
After some pretty inconsiderate driving at earlier events this year we reluctantly accepted a few Radical sports cars for our recent Spa event on the very firm understanding that they had to behave themselves and stay well out of the way of our regular customers. Whilst the majority did so there were small number of thoughtless drivers who showed no respect whatsoever for our required standards and consequently we have reluctantly taken the decision to ban most Radicals from future RMA events. The only exception being RMA Gold level members or higher who are true track day enthusiasts rather than racers using our events for cheap testing.
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I was there and thought them Radical were generally well behaved. Clearly, some were up to no good! Driving standards were good apart from a couple of cup cars!
I was at a gold track day last year at silverstone and some of the drivers in radicals were complete cocks. Not sure if they were ‘arrive and drive’ guy or not though, as there were a few radical owned cars out.
Coming into a hairpin had a Radical undertake me at the apex and go pirouetting across the track. I suppose it does help propagate a whole “get the fuck outta my way” demeanor thats useful when clearing traffic.
[color:#000099]Re: Radicals - for anyone interested, if not please delete.
It appears my decision to ban non RMA Members in Radicals has caused a number of people to post a variety of opinions on the Pistonheads site. One or two of the comments were in agreement with the decision, some weren’t, several were quite amusing and some clearly from those who had little concept as to what they were talking about.
Whilst I would welcome any help differentiating between my left and right at drivers briefings and would fervently agree with Melindi that Fiat Multiplas should be banned - Radicals do represent a unique problem, at least they do to me and a lot of RMA regulars! Personally I think they are fantastic cars and never refuse the opportunity to drive one myself, the problem is they are just too good, they go round corners far quicker than conventional cars, consequently their closing speed is often extremely high, they can also be more difficult to see in the rear view mirror as they sit below the ‘normal’ line of sight.
I totally agree that in an ideal world we would ban the offending driver but the problem there is one of identification, a lot of the cars look vaguely similar, especially to someone who has been frightened silly by a 150 mph overtaking manoeuvre that they considered dangerous. We used to take our own marshals to Spa but that’s no longer possible and the local guys don’t speak English, there are no conventional marshals at Silverstone and not always at Donington, so external feedback is almost impossible and it’s equally difficult to identify offenders from the CCTV. I readily admit to being ‘poacher turned game keeper’ and know every excuse in the book, probably having invented some myself! Individual confrontation doesn’t usually work, as any regular racer knows you never admit to any wrong doing and have always behaved impeccably!
All those factors make it pretty difficult to be sure you are banning the right individual although I’m sure some people will disagree with me. So, to get it right, we have not banned Radicals completely and will be happy to accept any genuine track day driver who is prepared to respect our rules and make a nominal commitment to RMA by becoming a member and we know who’s driving what. Our lowest membership being Gold costs just �100 plus VAT for twelve months and the member receives a �30 discount off each RMA day, that’s just four events, or two visits to Spa to get your money back and will hopefully prevent the racer using and abusing our events for cheap testing.
Anyone with anything constructive to add is welcome to write to me at [email protected] or call me on 07836 348565.
