Close, but no cigar… Team ZEN make it to Oulton but don’t score!

I have left it a good 72 hours for this update, to give myself and the team time to recover, digest and collect our thoughts! It has since taken me another 24 hours to find the time to get it all down. Still better late than never…

My last update was at around 6am on the morning of round 1 but I will backtrack slightly to pick up the story… At some point on Friday, having had the car running on the axle stands, with the Autronic ECU from Rich’s car doing its thing, we decided to go for the Solaris install. David spent all afternoon and late in to the evening adapting the wiring to suit, making up new parts of the loom as necessary. This proved to be one of our biggest mistakes of the weekend, as we effectively disabled the engine for 12 hours! When I left ZEN at getting on for midnight on Friday 24th, Paul and David were painstakingly going through every pin-out testing, checking and rechecking as they had just discovered they had lost all ability to start and control the engine. Coupled with what was eventually found to be a dodgy map sensor and the car was not playing ball, at all

Having decided we were far too advanced and committed to quit at this stage, Paul and David continued on (whilst Tim finished up the last bits in the engine bay) and by 6am the car was running again and loaded up on to the dyno. As Paul ran the car up, David tried to get some sleep (Tim, clearly exhausted, slept like a baby through the whole thing.) I was on the phone to Steven Darley, who was at Oulton, asking him to make sure we were OK to turn up late and to look out for Tom for me. Steve Fullbrook and his brother in law Andy, and Roy Kunz were on hand to help me start packing all the gear (we literally just grabbed whatever was lying around) and make cups of tea for the lads!

At around 8am, Paul was satisfied enough with the how the engine was running  (despite some smoke on initial start up) to load the car on to the trailer. With time very short (we were aiming for the practice session at 11am), we put all the aero into Steve’s van, other bits and pieces in to Roy’s van and by 8:30am or so, we were on our way.

It soon became clear to me that it wasn’t going to be straight forward getting to Oulton. Too tired to eat, Paul was literally running on empty, but as the only one experienced enough bar Tim (even more lacking sleep than Paul) to tow the trailer, he had to get behind the wheel. 1 hour in and we were forced to stop at the services on the M6 toll . A quick update to Tom and a decision to scrap getting there for the practice and head for the qualifying only at 2:30pm, meant we could leave Paul to sleep for an hour.

We arrived at Oulton in time for lunch to the relief of some and the surprise of others! Wasting no time, Tim , Paul, David and Rich got the car off the trailer, half in to the garage and set about finishing the car some more! The air dam on the front splitter was shaped, shaved and fitted, then taped up with lots of black tank tape Tom and I went around chucking stickers on. Paul and David continued to finish up wiring and check the ECU with the laptop. It was good to see Duncan in fine spirits and certainly for me, when he was out doing his thing, keeping watch over the laptimes on our LCD TV was a  welcome distraction!

On running up the car, once again we were suffering with a good deal of oil smoke. So, again, Paul checks through everything on the laptop, while the lads check through everything in the engine bay. With no sign of any leaks or any issues with engine parameters, sensors and so on, the smoke began to clear and eventually the engine ran clean. I could see at this point we all had our own little theories as to what was going on!

Aware that Paul was looking too chilled and the Superbattle Qualifying already in progress I let Paul know that 5 minutes had already elapsed in our session. Paul did a double take, thinking it was still Duncan’s qualifying session! Ready enough, we sent Tom out. He had the mammoth task of bedding in the brand new brake discs and pads,  keeping an eye on absolutely everything and setting a laptime fast enough to qualify. We managed just 2 timed laps, as all the niggles you usually iron out in testing came to a head - dodgy sensors throwing up erroneous alarms, in the case of coolant temperature and oil pressure, an issue with the radiator cooling fans and a top end misfire. Tom reported that the brakes were much improved over the last time he drove the car at Oulton with the new Performance Friction pad compound giving him superb bite but the pedal feel was not so great with travel and sponginess. Good enough to qualify but outside the points, discouraged but not defeated, the team set about making more changes for the final.

We spent time bleeding the brakes to improve pedal feel and Paul spent more time working on the mapping to eliminate the misfire, before moving on to try and sort the fan issues. Once again David had the cover off the switch box and delved in to the loom. Unable to get Paul’s laptop to communicate with the digital dash, we were feeling around in the dark regarding coolant and oil pressure but nevertheless certain the warnings that made Tom pull up were erroneous and not real.

Spirits were lifted as some of us took the time to follow Duncan’s progress. As he came back to the pits having finished 3rd there was a small glimmer of jubilation. But facing our own battle to get to the Superbattle, we had to sadly leave Duncan to his celebrations this time.

On winding the car up again, the smoke was there again but with the clock already ticking on the Superbattle final, there was no choice but to send Tom out.

Oulton is one of those tracks that leaves the team edgy - 1 minute 30 seconds is a hell of a long time when you are standing on the pit wall! Catching sight of Tom as he came around the final bend we could see immediately he was coming in. All the lads jumped straight on the car and Tom shouts that the power steering has gone. In the engine bay the auxiliary belt had been spat off. We have never had this problem before but there again, we have changed a lot of the plumbing and routing at the front of the engine bay to fit the Cosworth inlet manifold around the front mounted turbo. In the final minutes of the session, this is a problem we really did not need. With hindsight, we should have cut the belt, put the emergency battery in the car and sent Tom out for one lap without the power steering but in the heat of the moment the team were sure they could fix it. Battling with time, the belt switch did not go smoothly. Steven Darley ran back and forward between TV and pitlane shouting the time remaining. When at last we sent Tom out with a new belt, I was sure we had run out of time and sank to the floor in the pit garage, no longer with the energy to check the TV or the track… All too soon the chequered flag was out and we knew we had not made it.

The events of the last week quickly caught up with everyone and as the adrenaline and energy left us, we were a seriously deflated bunch. But thanks so much to Tom, who wouldn’t allow us to be too disheartened. He gave everyone a huge pat on the back for preparing a car that he described as having the most awesome handling, with huge amounts of potential and time still to come. He reported that the car had amazing grip, was completely neutral and was just waiting to go! Only having been able to cruise around, Tom assured us that if everything was on song it was a podium car for sure. Everyone perked up and got all philosophical after that, even David

The last to arrive but one of the last to leave, the team packed up for the day, whilst discussing the what ifs and buts and proposing our theories on the smoking engine. The general agreement was that there was no problem - it just hadn’t been run in! ZEN have never been overly precious over running in race engines but even we knew we hadn’t done enough this time around. The car had run on the axle stands on mineral oil, before that was dropped, replaced with fully synthetic and then run on the dyno for less than a hour. But only a thorough investigation would tell.

The journey home was slow but livened up by a perfect stoppie and a huge wheelie by Rich on his bike Oh and we started planning for Knockhill Watch this space…

Thanks to all our sponsors, supporters and friends, ever ready to share the blood, sweat and tears with us!

STOP PRESS: ZEN to contend 2009 Time Attack Series

Last night we made a mad decision…

Last night we made a mad decision. I was at home about to watch some crap TV, Paul was at ZEN tidying up. We had this plan to take our time developing the car during the first half the year, maybe pick up some events from late Summer… Our MSN conversation went something like this….

Liz: ‘So, the entry list for TA is out…’
Paul: ‘ Who? what?’
Liz: ‘Its all on the website.’
A bit of discussion ensued.
Paul: ‘Do you have itchy feet about Time Attack at all?’
Liz: ‘OF COURSE! LOL!’
Paul: ‘When is Round 2?’
Liz: ‘May.’
Paul: ‘Knockhill.’
Liz: ‘Yeah the lovely Knockhill.’
And then Paul hit send on his reply….
Paul: ‘We could be ready for Round 1 you know!’
At the same time as I hit send on my mine.
Liz: ‘There is a whole 25 days until Oulton you know!’

So, with 24 whole days to go (!), we decided this morning (officially) to make efforts to have our car ready for Round 1. First thing this morning I filled in Tim (longest standing member of ZEN staff) and Richard (about to become the newest member) on our plans. Needless to say there were some expletives. Thing is the car as it sits in our newly planned out ‘Race Car Build Area’ (that’s tongue in cheek by the way), has…. no wheels or tyres, no brakes, no ECU and well to be frank, no engine whatsoever!

It’s not all bad though. Paul has been planning the build up of the car for 2009, since Brands in 2008. We have an extensive list of weight saving measures ordered by £ spent per kilo saved. We have specced out custom brakes and dry sump. We have a demon carbon fibre front splitter we inherited from a proper race team to shoehorn on to the car. Tom Ferrier is on board as driver and the usual hordes of helpers have been messaging me all day pledging days off and free time However… problems are as follows (and they are not insignificant!) We have the most work on we have ever had. We are making more mailorder sales than ever before. But we have no sponsors and we *have* to make steps to reduce our already meager budget

Let’s make no bones about this Time Attack is expensive, very expensive to remain competitive. We had estimated a modest but full budget of £35,000 to do the 2009 season with all the bells and whistles (and a hefty chunk of sponsorship making that up I hasten to add). I need to halve this, at least! (Edited to add the italics and underline!!)

So, this morning I emailed sponsors past, present and potential, to see if any packages could be agreed. Initial responses are all positive - our supporters old and new are glad that we will be present again this year, as I knew they would be. But these are credit crunch times. You only have to look at the international motorsport press to see the big boys suffering to see this. Whatever happens, it is not the ZEN way to give up!

Step 1 is complete at least, the car has been de-nuded thanks to our detailer Roy Kunz

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