Knockhill report

Silverstone report

Donington report

28th July

Team ZEN at Knockhill by Liz Blamire

Round 3 of Time Attack took place at Knockhill in Scotland on July 27th. With the win in round one as well as fastest time of the day, plus a creditable 4th place in round two, ZEN arrived north of the border leading the series jointly on points with Roger Clark Motorsport. We were expecting a tough day of racing with Olly Clark our main rival for the round win and the series but the added challenege of Jimmy McRae (father of Colin and Allister and five times winner of the British Rally Championships) in the fully race-prepared Autosportif/Tein Impreza. Knockhill is subject to varied and localised weather, so we were expecting changeable and potentially challenging conditions - how right we were!

Team ZEN began the trip up to Knockhill on the Thursday evening, having (as usual) worked on the car right up to the last minute. The plan was to leisurely map the car on the Friday and fit in a bit of R&R with our Scottish friends. On Friday after a catch up session with Andy Forrest, Andy jumped in to the driver's seat, Paul plugged in the laptop and they headed out for some mapping. Unfortunately all the plans went out of the window when Andy and Paul returned with long faces and a lifting headgasket due to a rather unfortunate detonation incident caused by an ECU issue. For the first time that weekend we were suddenly relying on the goodwill of a fellow Subaru enthusiast - Andy gave us the green light to use his workshop and to make the headgaskets he had fit, so Paul and Fred, ably assisted by Andy, began the task of removing the engine to make the necessary repairs at about 5pm. Paul and Fred did not see their beds until 2am but the engine seemed to have suffered minimal damage (although unseen piston damage was certainly possible) and the headgaskets were holding. Paul's infamous quote of 2006 'if you are not fixing the car the night before you are not trying hard enough' seeming to be all too true for 2007!

Saturday morning arrived all too quickly but the conditions were excellent - dry and cool. We had booked time in the Subaru Impreza Drivers Club (SIDC) trackday for the morning, so Phil Glew was buckled in and took Paul out, listening to the engine and monitoring all parameters. Even taking it easy it was evident how much faster the ZEN car was compared to the usual trackday cars - I think Phil surpirsed a few drivers as he appeared rapidly in their mirrors! Once Paul was out of the car Phil relaxed in to it a bit more (by that I mean he kept his foot in a lot more) and put some laps in for datalogging. With everyone happy with the performance and handling, Phil and the car rested up till the first warm-up session of Time Attack.

Satisfied that the engine was good to go, Paul adjusted the mapping for slightly more boost and Phil drove the car around to the holding area. Plenty of adrenaline was flowing and the cars of the Pro-class made a magnificent impression against the beautiful backdrop of Knockhill. There is no mistaking that the cars in this series are serious pieces of machinery - they look and sound awesome and every meet has a real buzz to it. All the cars filed out for a warm up but unfortunately the curse of the samco struck the ZEN car and Phil was unable to complete any warm up laps as a boost hose slackened and popped off. By the time we had the hose back on the session was red flagged and then ran out of time.

After an agonising wait (Time Attack and European Drift sharing the day) and with the skies threatening rain, it was time for the one and only practice session. Phil was eager to get on the pace, having had traffic to contend with in the morning trackday and no chance to even complete a lap in the warm up. Phil did not disappoint - he absolutely flew out from the off and his first lap was a 53.450, which would end up as the fastest time of the day. His second lap was a dissapointing 58s and he was immediately in the pits having lost all drive. Paul got in the car and immediately knew the problem 'I know exactly what that noise is - the transfer gears have shat themselves!' Back to the paddock, with just over 90 minutes till the one shot only qualifying session and no transmission spares. Having run around the paddock and speaking to fellow competitors, Paul came back to declare 'we need to find a car that we can nick transfer gears from'. All eyes fell upon John Felstead's road car, which John had driven up to Scotland to run in the freshly built engine. Without missing a beat, John said 'go for it' - Subaru enthusiast goodwill gesture number 2. With some axle stands borrowed from Roger Clark Motorsport and the able skills of David Wallis, the swap began, in what was now rather wet weather.

David and Paul worked rapidly and with very little need for discussion (both knowing Subarus and each other's work so well) as a growing audience watched on. Phil was rather concerned that John would have no way to get his car home but John, knowing the ZEN and Lateral Performance supporters (we always pit together), was not bothered - he just wanted to see the ZEN Impreza make the qualifying session. We knew that all Phil needed to do was be faster than 5 other pro drivers to make the final but would the car be ready?

With literally minutes to spare, we rolled in to the holding area, the last pro car to line up. We all heaved a sigh of relief but perhaps our fellow competitors let out a sigh of despair?! Once again it looked like the weather had plans to scupper the session... Frustrated by so little running in the car, Phil was once again keen to get out and show everyone how well he could drive but at the back of his mind was the thought that he must keep the car together for the final. The pro drivers only managed 4 laps before the session was red flagged due to the rain coming down by the bucket. Phil had managed a 54.333 on his first lap, leaving him second by the tiniest of margins to McRae on a 54.316. How glad we were to qualify!

The weather worsened from then on and there were various rumours going around about possibly re-running the qualifying session, to calling it a day and awarding the prizes from fastest time of the day onwards! The decision was made to allow all pro drivers a place in the final, as opposed to the usual top 10. It was then asked that everyone indicate immediately prior to the final commencing whether or not they were happy to race. After agonising over tyre choice, we left the final decision to Phil who opted for dry tyres. The track was still wet but the clouds were clearing and the session looked as if it would slowly dry out. In to the holding area and all drivers were asked to indicate whether or not they wished to run. Knowing that if the vote went to 'no' we would be crowned winners, all eyes fell on Phil. He quickly piped up 'YES I want to drive!' and then everyone else followed suit. Phil and Paul felt they would rather lose in the final, then win by default on our fastest time of the day.

So, out went the colourful array of huge horsepower cars. Undaunted by the challenge, Phil went out slowly at first, testing for traction and the suitability

of kerbing. On lap 1 his time was well over 1 minute but as soon as he was happy with how far he could push, his times started to plummet. My job was to stand in the timekeepers shed watching the monitors. After each nail-biting lap, I indicated our position to the team on the pit wall. After 5 laps and a slight slide on the last bend, Phil had pretty much annihalated the opposition as follows:

Lap 1 = 1:05.251
Lap 2 = 59.571s
Lap 3 = 58.333s
Lap 4 = 57.827s
Lap 5 = 57.704s

Unfortunately the standing water on the track meant for more than one pro car casualty and an incident involving Clive Seddon's RC Evo ended the session with a red flag. Once we were satisfied that Clive was OK, we celebrated. We had won by a margin of 1.063s over Olly Clark in second, and a margin of 2.911s over McRae in third.

Knockhill was hard work but worth every minute: Our second win, our second fastest time of the day and a 2 point lead in the series!

As always our thanks to our sponsors and supporters, and in particular to Andy Forest for allowing us to use his Edinburgh workshop to repair the car on Friday night, Fred Walton for assisting with the engine out and back in again, John Felstead for allowing us to pull the transfer box from his road car, David Wallis for mechanical assistance and all other helpers and well-wishers (including John Stewart of the SIDC ringing around Scottish Subaru garages for possible spares).

The Time Attack final takes place at Brands Hatch on September 2nd.

Thanks to John Stewart for the use of all of his fabulous Knockhill photographs.

3rd June 2007

Team ZEN at Silverstone by John Felstead

The lead up to the 2nd Time Attack event saw a huge effort by Paul, Liz and the team at Zen Performance with some help from their friends and competitors alike to prepare the car, post engine failure and fire just two weeks previously at Castle Combe. I was already planning to give them a helping hand for the Friday/Saturday to help finish the car off and then spend Sunday in the pits helping with running the car during the event, when I was asked to take my race kit down to drive the car.

I had already driven the car on track a couple of times previously: Once during winter at Cadwell Park for a day, where we spent some time working on the chassis setup to come up with a job list for Paul to tackle over the winter. The 2nd time was for a few laps at Silverstone on the GP circuit. I was at Silverstone working on the setup of one of our Can Am cars (not driving, I work as a racecar engineer) so it was a good opportunity for Paul to check the mapping prior to the first Time Attack round at Donington a few days later, plus see how the chassis changes had worked. Paul had done a superb job on the car over the winter and completely transformed the handling; it was also giving a lot more power than at Cadwell. There was no on the limit driving at all, with Paul sat in the car with the laptop whilst I kept it flat-out down the straights or trying the throttle response mid corner. A few laps of that and it was back to my day job with Paul all checked out ready for Donington. As was seen Matt Allison did a stunning job and won the first round for the Team.

So come this weekend things were a lot more challenging for the Team, I arrived on Friday afternoon to find a great team of people getting stuck in to Paul and Stevens cars, still no engine in Paul’s car although it was ready to be fitted, Stevens gearbox about half built but things were progressing well. We all worked until 2:30am then headed for home for the night. A few hours sleep for most of the team then it was back at it again. I had a bit of a lie-in as I was shattered from doing silly hours on my day job and needed some rest if I was going to drive.

All hands on deck again then on Saturday and around midnight the car was ready for running the engine in. That consisted of a few laps around the estate and a couple of oil changes, then a couple of full throttle squirts to see if it felt OK under load. It sure did feel quick! Back to bed for a few hours after packing up ready for Silverstone and then before we knew it, it was time to be up and heading for the track.

I must admit I was a little apprehensive about the day, not from the driving point as I am happy about knowing my own limits and have pretty good feel for what an Impreza will do, but from being able to show the cars potential to the full and get a good result for all the effort the team had put in. The last time I pushed a car against the clock proper was in 1998, so I was curious how much I might have slowed down - being more of an old git and driving for fun only since. The other thing is I didn’t know most of the track at all! I drove the GP circuit twice back in 1999/2000 in my then Sapphire Cossie and Westfield plus the handful of laps I did with Paul on the GP track a few weeks before. I hadn’t seen the National circuit apart from spending 3 days running some cars at the Grand Prix last year, where the National straight was our pit’s for the GP support races, I knew what it looked like at 5MPH, but at 170MPH I hadn’t a clue.

My main targets for the event was firstly keep the car on the black stuff, next was don’t do anything to damage the engine/box and next was try and score some points so the team could still have a chance at the championship. I wanted to mostly try and be competitive with Olly Clark as the RCMS car is a great benchmark and Olly is a cracking driver, plus they were lying 2nd after the first round so ideally we need to match them on points as much as possible after the 2nd round.

The format for the Pro runners was a 10 minute warm-up, then 20 mins practice, 20 mins top 10 qualifying and then the final shootout for the top 10. The plan was to learn the circuit and have a look at the competition on the warm-up session to see how much I would need to improve during the day and at the same time put some miles on the engine so Paul could check the mapping was close enough to be safe. That plan went out the window after one lap when the session was red flagged due to an accident; thankfully everyone was OK which was the most important thing.

The next session we planned to do our warm-up session runs but only managed 4 laps as the engine was getting too hot and needed some work from Paul to compensate for the new engine setup. It was very much a case of using Paul’s experience to analyse what was required rather than what you would normally do live with the engine running under load. It was a relief to see the timesheets after the session to see we were fairly close to the pace, with 5th fastest just 1.3s off quickest and 0.7s off Ollie Clark and Simon Norris. I knew they would go quicker but felt based on how hard I was trying we might stand a chance of a good result.

The next session was the important one; there was only one thing I wanted to do - get the car into the top 10 so we could score some points in the final. I was confident we could do that although the top ten were looking to be very close and we had decided to turn the boost down and alter the mapping to give the engine more safety whilst Paul got some data logs to read and analyse. As soon as I left the pits I knew we were in trouble, the engine wouldn’t pull and was developing a misfire, so I came straight back in. Paul connected up the laptop and had a look at the data logs and saw what the problem was, changed the mapping and loaded that up and it was time to give it another go. On my out lap the red lights came on so I had to slow down - at the entry to the National straight Simon Norris’s car was parked with lots of smoke coming from the engine bay and five or six competitors stopped to help. I pulled up alongside and checked everyone was OK and the fire was out then slowly headed back to the pits thinking that would be it, we won’t qualify for the final. We were very much up against it time wise as I hadn’t set a time yet and there was only a few minutes left to run which were being eaten up in the Red Flag period. My lap time was showing as 16 minutes 49 seconds, which wasn’t going to get me into the final.

I just headed to the end of the pit lane in front of the red flag closing the track and sat there hoping they would restart the session so I could have at least one go at setting a time. I overheard the marshal’s radio saying they would restart in 2 minutes, so that was a huge relief and gave me a bit of time to think about what I needed to do. As soon as the track re-opened I nailed it out of the pits and did a fast out lap as I didn’t know how long the session would stay green, I had to get one quick lap in. The engine was pulling strong so Paul had done a great job in the few minutes he had to sort the problem. That was a 1:02.9s which was 6th fastest. I wasn’t sure if that was good enough so just drove as hard as I could and had another 3 laps before the chequered flag came out, eventually managing a 1:02.5s which was good enough for 5th, just 0.4s off fastest and 0.2s off Olly Clark. I haven’t tried that hard in a very long time.

It was now time for the shootout final, Paul had analysed the data logs again and was happy to up the boost a bit more. Olly was first in the queue and I was 2nd, we agreed that I would give Olly a gap on the out lap so he could concentrate on the driving and not be concerned about me behind. The same was agreed with the car behind me, it’s the most sensible thing to do when you are against the clock and not racing for road position. Off shot Olly like a scalded cat, do these cars look fast when accelerating away from you! I kept about a 10 second gap to Olly but had an Evo all over my backside going into the start of the first lap, I just kept my line and then nailed it towards Woodcote and decided to ignore what was behind me for this lap, he wasn’t coming through.

After the first lap Olly set a time of 1:02.064s and my time was 1:02.110s so we were separated by just 0.046s! We were lying 1st and 2nd after the first lap. The gap stayed this close between us for the first 10 minutes with Olly lying 3rd and me 4th, Steve Guglielmi was 2nd and Clive Seddon had put in a stunning 2nd lap to be leading at the half way point. I did a few slowish laps to give myself and the car a breather then had another go at it, but couldn’t improve my time. I was mainly losing out in Luffield where there was a lot of oil or coolant on the track and I was worried that was on the racing line going through Woodcote, so wasn’t prepared to keep it floored through there as it’s not a place to go off. Olly was far braver than anyone in that last 10 minutes and managed to knock another 0.38s off his time, moving him up to 2nd. That was a seriously impressive piece of driving and a real joy to watch from my vantage point.

So at the end of the event I think we got a great result, especially with the circumstances leading up to the weekend, to be within 0.44s of Olly was as much as I could hope for, and to come away from the event as joint leaders of the championship with RCMS is great for the teams chances at the championship. I think we proved this weekend just how competitive the car is, even with an old git behind the wheel. Well done to all at Team Zen Performance, you worked damn hard and deserve to be joint leaders at the half way point of the year. Well done also to all the other competitors, it was a really close battle this time which bodes well for the rest of the year; Time Attack is a brilliant event to be a part of.

Photo number 4 courtesy of Neil at Eclipse Motor Bodies and photos 5 & 6 courtesy of Adam Morrison - cheers lads!

7th/8th April 2007

Team ZEN at Donington Park by Fred Walton

Well what a weekend for Team ZEN. We arrived at Donington on Friday evening following two very successful shakedown sessions at Silverstone on the Wednesday and Bruntingthorpe earlier on the Friday. We were given permission to use both of our drivers, Phil Glew and Matt Allison, over the weekend on the condition that we only use one driver in each day. Due to his BTCC commitments Matt is only able to drive for us this weekend.

Saturday morning and Phil is behind the wheel and the day starts really well with some excellent lap times. We make a small adjustment to the rear dampers in order to correct some slight under-steer. 12:05 and its time for the second practice session. Phil sets some very fast lap times with a 1:15.5 and as it’s his first time driving the car it is a brilliant achievement. Unfortunately the next time we see him is when he pulls into the pit lane with no drive. The early prognosis is not good with the clutch being a likely suspect so we miss the final practice session whilst we remove the gearbox. It’s immediately evident that one of the three carbon fibre plates has disintegrated. Fortunately we were able to obtain a complete replacement clutch within an hour thanks to a very gracious Pat Herborn who just happened to have a spare at home so by late afternoon the car was back on the track. Everything appeared to be running well and we were able to give the clutch a bit of a run in and make some minor adjustments to improve the handling.

Sunday morning and it is another fine and sunny day but a little colder than Saturday. Its Matt’s day to drive the car and the first practice session progresses well with no drama and the car is looking good. Track temperatures are a bit on the cold side so times are around the 1:16 mark but still very respectable and Matt is very happy with the set up so good job done by Phil [although both drivers remarked on just how much grip the car had]. Just before the end of the session we lose 5th gear and we never had sight of it again that day.

Before going out for the timed qualifying session Paul set the rev limiter to 8500 rpm giving Matt another 10 mph in 4th gear hoping that he will not be hitting the limiter for too long on the long straights. The result is the top qualifying time of the session – 1:14.9, the only car in the 1 minute 14 second bracket. Amazingly this time was set not only without 4th gear but also on a lap where Paul sees smoke and flames from under the car as it crosses the start/finish line. We immediately get Matt in to the pits with the team armed with fire extinguishers. Fortunately the fire had extinguished itself but that was a scary moment. A quick look under the bonnet and it’s a split low pressure return oil feed pipe from the turbo.

Once again its Paul, John Felstead and Steven Darley who come to the rescue. The front is off the car, radiators removed and the very hot turbo and exhaust carefully handled although Stephen wasn’t quite so lucky. So it’s an up-pipe to turbo gasket that had fractured causing hot gasses to blow on the oil pipe which finally gave way spewing oil over the red hot components that ignited. I think we were pretty lucky to get away with that. Still we had plenty of time to fix it before the final and certainly enough time for a cup of tea and an ice cream before the final. (Don’t all race teams do that?)

The engine is fired up and Matt straps himself in and sets off down the pit lane to wait for the green flag to commence the final session – this is it. This is what all the months of preparation over the winter have been about and this is when all the hard work over the last 48 hours getting the car to the final is about to prove its value. You could not believe the apprehension, the tension and the excitement a mixture of emotions not often felt at motor racing events.

Well Matt is away and after just one lap is really setting a blistering pace. The car is sounding absolutely fantastic. Next time around Matt has more handfuls of neutral then he could ever need and heads to the pits but just as inexplicably the problem disappears and he is flying again – now I know where the bits of the 5th gear are. There are now more stop watches on Matt than in the Argos catalogue and suddenly on lap 3 up pops a 1:14.064. To put that into context that is 3 seconds faster than the 2006 winning Litchfield Imports/Powerstation Impreza driven by Phil Keen and just 1.5 seconds off of Gordon Sheddon’s 2006 BTTC qualifying lap and he was on slicks and had more than 4 gears! Not bad is it? At the time that was 1 second faster then anyone else on the track but bemusingly the commentator seemed to have missed it for a while although it obviously hadn’t escaped our notice. With a few minutes time left in the final session Matt pulls into the pit lane and we all start to celebrate a fantastic result when Ollie Clark on his 7th flying lap posts a 1:14.59. This removes the smiles for a short while whilst we decide whether or not to send Matt out for another couple of laps. Fortunately there was very little time left for any further action and so the day, the week-end and the result was ours.

So it just remains to say a very big thank you to Tim Farmer who unfortunately couldn’t be with us over the week-end but worked tirelessly over the last few months helping Paul to prepare the car, Pat, Steven and John for making the result possible and to Matt and Phil for getting the very best out of the car. And yes there is a lot more to come and hopefully you will see it at Silverstone on the 3rd June 2007.

Team ZEN would also like to thank the following sponsors: AET Turbos, Toyo Tyres, EXE-TC Competition Suspension, Supertech Performance, Pfitzner Performance Gearbox, Lateral Performance, Millers Oils, Motorsport Cameras, R J Morris Services, Blackett Photography, Pro-Valeting and SJS Design for their continued support and sponsorship.

For further information please contact:

Fred Walton
Motorsport Manager
Zen Performance