‘TRACK AND RACE CARS’ magazine ‘Track Tested – Track Day Stars’: -

Mr Grippy

Its new for 2004, boasts bike power and has a price tag of around £10,000. But is the T5 Developments’s Mission really any good? Keith Wood got behind the wheel to find out….’

When Radical Sportscars turned its SR3 Supersport into Tracksport mode it was an impressive sight to behold; a real racer for legal road use or track day action. It took a lot of balls and has influenced many a design since, a bit like the car staring back at you across these pages built by one man, Tom Sadler. However, T5 Developments, as his company is known, isn’t charging you the £30,000 asking price of an SR3 Tracksport though, try just £10,000.

Impressive indeed but surely there’s a catch? Well, if you wanted it in kit form then that’s the price you’ll be looking at. A fully built ready to roll track day weapon, however, is more in tune at £15,000 which is a steal, just for the hard edged racer looks normally found on a Sports 2000 grid…. where the Mission will be heading in the not-too-distant future. But before I get ahead of myself, let’s run through what you get for your money from this track day terror.

Although Tom started out in life as a plumber by trade, the chassis doesn’t exactly resemble the pipework found on the outside of the world famous Pompidou building in Paris. Instead its been cleverly designed, believe it or not, in a shed at the bottom of his garden. We all have to start somewhere and nine times out of 10 the finished article is always in desperate need of changes and modification, heart-breaking stuff, especially if like Tom you’ve spent 15 weeks trying to create a masterpiece.

But R&D work is all part and parcel of creating a successful race/track day car, so Tom enrolled a good pal of his and Jaguar World Monthly XJS Championship runner, Gary Davis. Together the two made several improvements to the original double wishbone suspension (controlled by a push-rod/rocker setup). A huge chunk of time was saved at Mallory where initial tests took place, as well as a more local Brands Hatch.

So when I managed to get Tom and the Mission to our test track at Bruntingthorpe we had quite a well balanced and complete car…… for dry use. You see in January the weather isn’t at its best, so things were a little wet. Consequently I was expecting plenty of sideways action, especially with the Honda Blackbird bike engine sitting transversely behind the drivers seat. What a surprise I got then when I took the Mission for its first run around the circuit.

Although sporting 10x13 inch with rear Revolutions (brilliant with a set of slicks shoe-horned on in hot weather) the grip with a set of heavy duty Kumho track day rubber was actually very good. In fact, its traction was apparent on the first lap out and, more importantly, through the fast Villenerves section where many a car’s agility is tested to the limit. Screaming through the six-speed sequential ‘box, transferring the Birds 160bhp to the rear wheels via the Quaife transaxle, the tyres rarely broke traction, even up high around the 10,500rpm mark. Tom confessed though that the introduction of an old Supersports racers rear wing has helped the aerodynamics in terms of creating extra down-force and you can more than feel the benefits.

Out of Race Technology Turn Two things were a little hairy with the typical lightweight feel accelerator, normally associated with bike-engined cars, opening the carbs wide open and beating your ear drums with the most aggressive scream. Its truly inspirational and with quick lifts while trying to keep up with the snappy upshifts, I was left balancing the rear of the chassis. Its rear doesn’t snap out in anger unless you really want it to or get over-eager, instead it begs you to drive it quicker every lap.

Its nimble characteristics are fairly easy to understand on paper though. It has a wheel base of just over eight feet in length and half of that figure wide, while its total mass weight is just over the 480 kilos. The power-to-weight ratio is just as impressive at 330bhp per ton. I was left exiting curves kicking myself because the amount of speed I could have carried into them could have been so much more.

Obviously with more track time comes more speed, but to be fair I had so much fun I couldn’t care less how slow or quick I lapped our test track, it felt planted and it felt quick and for track days that’s all that matters.
Although the boundaries for a wild, road-legal track day car have been pushed further and further every year by companies such as Radical and Westfield, there is a need for a well built but reasonably priced alternative. So, with a price tag of around £15,000, for a complete car, Tom has done the UK track day market a world of good. Okay, its not road legal, as of yet, but it wont be long until a two-seater road-legal derivative is produced. This will also mean the Mission can be entered into competition for use in the Supersport Series, Road Going Bike-engined Championship and even the Sports 2000 series running a 2.0 litre Duratec engine.

As you can probably imagine, the possibilities for the Mission are endless and after an impressive outing around our test track, I cant wait to get back in the drivers seat once we get some better weather. In the pouring rain it ran a lap time of 1min 31.72 sec. which is a mighty lap and now holds our lap record for the circuit in wet conditions. Okay, its not quite the pace of an SR4, but then again you aren’t paying SR4 money…..

Keith Wood :- ‘Track and Race Cars’