The reactions of the nearly electroneutral methyl and of the nucleophilic 1-adamantyl radical with some selected nitrothiophen derivatives have been investigated in order to elucidate the factors which control the positional selectivity of radical addition to an aromatic substrate. With 5-nitro-2-X-thiophens (II), (V), and (VI) and 3,5-dinitro-2-methoxycarbonylthiophen (III) the adamantyl radical gave