Sneek Peak- A look Inside Mad Mike Whiddett’s Radbul MX-5

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A Racepak IQ3 dash is used.  We like the nice big display.  The IQ3 plugs right into the Haltech Sport 2000 ECU.
The car's datalogging system is GPS enabled.  This helps track how well the car is doing at any given point around the track.
The car uses a large rear deck spoiler and a big front splitter.  Splitters make a pretty big difference at the high speed tracks on the FD circuit. The carbon front flares are by Autokonexion and the carbon hood, doors and hard top are by Goodwin Racing.
The car's rear overfenders and side skirts are Rocket Bunny parts from an FD RX-7 kit!  They go on the MX-5 with very little fitting. The Radbul has a super short 91.7″ wheelbase making it the shortest car on the FD Circuit. Conventional wisdom says that a wheelbase of around 100 inches is optimal for most modern drift courses. With tons of power, really grippy tires, a radical rearward weight bias and a super short wheelbase, the Radbul is easily the fastest accelerating car on the FD circuit.  It can also change directions faster than any other car and can and run at huge angles. 
The Radbul's huge capability comes with a price.  The Radbul seems to be a handful to drive consistently and a lot of points in Formula Drift comes from the ability to constantly drive the line that the judges want.  This is one of the difficulties that the team faces.
Perhaps the Radbul's main flaw is that it doesn't seem to like going slow and it looks to be very difficult to drive while following, especially slower cars that you run into in top 32.  This is sort of reminiscent of the Saturn sky that Darren McNamara used to drive but to an even higher degree due to more smallness, better tires and much greater power.

The Radbul is currently exhibiting blinding straight line and cornering speed with and spectacular high angle capability. We are confident that the RedBull team under the leadership of Scot Dodgion will soon get the bugs out of Radbul. The idea of a fully sorted Radbul is quite terrifying to those who face it, at least it should be.

 

 

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