Radical Cup: One on one with Group-A Racing’s Jonathan Scarallo

When I came across the Radical Cup, I was blown away to see they recently had 37 cars at Road America, plus they were a support series to the NTT IndyCar Series. Then I realized there was a dealership opportunity for us in the North East. Our dealership just turned two years old this past week and it’s been the best decision of my life. It has transformed our business, allowing us to expand at a rate that would not have happened if we wouldn’t have made the decision to make the switch and join the Radical Cup program.

We still have Sonoma to go, and the World Finals in Vegas, but there are so many highlights for us. At Barber Motorsports Park and Road America, we had all our drivers on the pole position in all three classes for the same race. It was very cool to have a sweep like that. We have come up just short of winning all three classes in the same race, which has never been done before and a goal of ours for sure.

Entering Aurora Straus and instantly having her on the podium all three races during her debut at Watkins Glen is another great highlight of our season as well. The amount of progress she made from her first test in March to her first race was huge and very rewarding for all at Group-A Racing. Reid Stewart came to us last year and where he is today -- a multi race winner -- is a night and day difference. Jack Yang never drove a car before getting a Radical from our dealership, yet he has been on the podium many times this year and earned a win on track at Utah and has also been racing in the UK Radical series. All these success stories really showcase our coaching and how we develop our drivers into podium winners.

For the young kids we have three platforms of speed for them to grow into straight from the karting level. While it’s sports car racing, it’s a prototype with a very similar driving experience to open wheel. The alumni have proven the series does a tremendous job of getting drivers ready for higher levels of both open-wheel and sports car racing. The Radical Cup program is a tremendous teaching platform used around the world. In Radical Cup the drivers also get to learn multi-class race traffic management, how to perform pit stops under pressure with the race three mandatory pit stop, and yet all done at a budget of basically the most affordable open wheel series in the world, but with much faster cars. 

For the gentlemen drivers, what else can you do for this budget: track time on high-profile events with IndyCar and at this performance. The Radical SR10 has on par performance with LMP3 and GT3, but our budgets are the same as Mazda MX-5 Cup, so it’s a tremendous value for the dollar. You don’t have to deal with sharing your car, no BOP, plus who doesn’t want to go 175mph at a track like Road America?

Catch Group-A Racing at the final round of the Blue Marble Radical Cup at Sonoma over the October 29-30 weekend, and the Radical World Finals, November 8-13 in Las Vegas. Visit www.radicalmotorsport.com for more information.