After the trophies had been handed out and the track cleared, Rivian offered the opportunity for a few trusted media to get behind the wheel of its R1S Quad RAD race SUVs on track. A very rutted, pot-holed, and soft track.
I, of course, couldn’t say no to driving an over 1,000-horsepower machine on the track I’d just been a spectator of for the past few days. While I enjoyed my experience at the event, I’m always much more interested in doing than watching.
RAD Rivian
The vehicles were prepared with Pirelli studded tires, race seats with five-point harnesses, and cool liveries, but were otherwise stock. Stock for a Rivian R1S Quad means 1,025 horsepower and 1,198 pound-feet of torque.
For about $13K, you could buy one of these three-row SUVs that can do 0-60 mph in under 3 seconds — on dry pavement — for yourself. Impressive performance for the money from a vehicle that can haul a lot of friends and/or gear, and has a curb weight of about 7,000 pounds.
The same vehicle that I was strapping into had just placed second on day one and third on day two of the FAT Ice Race. It was only bested by two very special one-off, bespoke vehicles, Ryan Tuerck’s Celica and Loren Healy’s ‘El Bandito’ RTR Bronco. Impressively, the Rivian was only a few seconds off the overall winning pace each day and was solidly ahead of the other 50 vehicles in the race, including multiple multi-million-dollar machines.
RAD Tuner
The vehicles on track also had Rivian’s latest over-the-air software update, which includes the RAD Tuner. It offers 10 vehicle dynamic parameters that can be user-adjusted on the fly. This new tool is specifically for R1T and R1S Gen 2 Quad vehicles.
These adjustable parameters include acceleration, regen, brake assist, steering assist, ride height, torque balance, wheel slip, stability, dampening, and roll stiffness. Your preferred settings can also be saved as selectable drive modes, which you can give fun names.
If you want to just hit a button and not mess with all the settings, the RAD Tuner comes with presets. They have been honed from the data collected on big adventures like the Rebelle Rally and the Pikes Peak International Hillclimb. An example is the data collected during the Rebelle Rally, which directly led to the creation of the Desert Rally drive mode.
Getting RAD
I, of course, set the RAD Tuner to allow me to have some sideways fun on the ice track. To do this, I set it to allow lots of wheelspin, made sure to turn off stability control, and told it to send most of the power to the rear wheels — I chose 70%.
Tail-happy good times were had, especially when I realized that the vehicle wouldn’t fight me much when I used both feet to drive, using varying brake and accelerator pedal pressures at the same time to fling the vehicle at the angles I desired through the turns on the track. Being able to properly two-foot drive, in the name of performance, an electric vehicle — or even many modern internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles — is rare.
Most new vehicles are designed for safety over all things, and don’t allow drivers to actually drive. The computer nannies usually babysit the driver and define what can and can’t be done based on conditions. Being able to adjust how much each of the computer nannies yell at you in the Rivian allows for proper performance driving — and hooning.
Rough Terrain
As much as I tried, I wasn’t able to avoid all the big holes and ruts in the track, but the Rivian took the hits like a champ. The track was rough enough, and the speeds were high enough, that the SUV had all four wheels in the air at times. This is where the air suspension shines, which has not been my experience on-road.
My biggest gripe with the Rivian vehicles I’ve driven on public roads is the air suspension. I find it to be a bit wallowy, inducing more head toss and motion sickness in passengers than any other modern vehicle I’ve been in. It has been a few years since I’ve driven a Rivian, however, and I know this is something that it’s aware of and is continuously tweaking through software updates.
But, over rough terrain, I found the Rivian suspension system to be quite capable.
Rivian at FAT Ice Big Sky
Not only did Rivian have its RAD R1S Quad racing on track, but it also had a number of its vehicles on display around the FAT Ice Race 2026 Big Sky event. Notably, it had the forthcoming Rivian R2 on display, in RAD livery. This much-anticipated smaller SUV is scheduled to hit the U.S. market in the second half of 2026.
But, the big news for Rivian at this year’s FAT Ice event is the official launch of RAD (Rivian Adventure Department) as a sub-brand. Think of it as bringing its skunkworks team into the mainstream and creating something like the internal performance divisions of competitors TRD, AMG, M, Polestar, N, etc.
I, for one, can’t wait to see where this all leads. Could we see a Rivian R3X RAD rally team? Not sure, but we can dream.
Read the full article here