On the 16th of October 2008, Sinclaire Motorsport and Car Limits (www.carlimits.com) held an activity day/publicity day at North Weald airfield for friends and customers of Sinclaire Motorsport. Both our Camel Honda and Katana Toyota demonstrator cars were available for people to drive and proved very popular with all who attended.

The day consisted of a number of high speed handling activities, the morning session being the high speed bend, and the afternoon being three different handling tracks. After a quiet and controlled start on the high speed bend, the spinning action started to hot up with many people wildly overcooking the bend in the name of amusement – particularly the Porsche 911 GT3 RS, which out of nine runs around the corner only managed three where the car exited the bend in the right direction – but hey, thats all part of the fun.

The afternoon saw some friendly competition on the handling tracks, with top times being exchanged back and forth quite a bit during the sessions. The day passed very well and all in attendance seemed to have a good time!

Thanks to Andrew and the Staff at North Weald, and thanks to all who attended!

A bonus round on the Elise Trophy calender saw the teams arrive at the full Silverstone Grand Prix circuit to support the Britcar 24hr event – a great weekend for the Lotus On Track crew to gain some publicity in front of a good crowd and some important onlookers.

The weekend promised to be a busy one for the Sinclaire crew, with our own driver Andrew Walsh to look after, along with our supported driver Vitthal Chauhan and Sinclaire customer Stuart Kirkbride. We arrived late on Thursday evening (18th) for a one hour test session to shake the car down, only to discover upon adjusting the rear wing to suit the high-speed straights, that the mount had a hairline crack between its supports, meaning a fully-floating rear wing assembly – sudden and hasty rear wing repair needed! Some emergency repairs soon took care of the wing issue and Andrew headed out for an hour of testing. A few suspension tweaks and some tyre pressure adjustments were the sum total of the setup changes so with everyone happy we tidied up for the evening.

As we were about to pack up our final items for the evening, a new competitor to the series, Greg Noble, came over to ask for some help – fitting a transponder, and rewiring an incorrectly installed Cartek Isolator system. Being the Lotus enthusiasts we are, we gladly set about putting things right for him, despite light drawing in, and the overall desire to sit down and eat! A few hours later and the car was restored to fully working configuration, along with a race-legal and fully functioning isolator.

Friday morning dawned, and we were blessed with a beautifully clear and sunny morning. Qualify came around soon enough and our driver Andrew Walsh set a blistering pole time almost straight off of the bat with consistent 2:08’s, leading on lap six to a full-bore 2:07.261 – making him as fast as the slick-equipped Exige Britcar of Martin Roos – interesting stuff… Sinclaire class A driver Vitthal Chauhan had never driven Silverstone, so his times were understandably down, clocking himself onto the back of the grid with a 2:28.850, just behind Phil Hatswell with a 2:25.039 – Vitthal could only get faster as the day progressed – so it was a good baseline for him to work with. Padding out the front of the grid behind Andrew was Chris Headlam and Sean Bicknell, along with Gavin Kirby in his 211 in Forth place, another star performance from Ben Pitch put him in fifth slot in his B Class car. Sinclaire customer Stuart Kirkbride flew the flag admirably in 21st overall, making him forth in the class A field – great work by Stuart once again!

Being on a large international circuit meant that the racing was a mixed grid, with all classes heading out together, A/B/C/211 all in one 47 car grid – quite an impressive sight. The first race kicked off on the Friday afternoon, and from Andrew Walsh’s point of view was a fairly straightforward affair, taking a lights to flag victory from the front of the grid with little involvement of any other cars for the duration of the race. Further down the grid Vitthal found some pace and started to bring his lap times down into line with the rest of the back field runners, eventually getting a useable 2:24.006, bringing some four seconds off of his qualify time as his confidence grew – had he got this time in qualify he would have moved himself up some four places on the grid. Come race end, Vitthal found himself in 34th, ahead of Hans Baumhardt and Mark Wilson (who was suffering VVC problems). Stuart Kirkbrides race mostly involved tangles with the mid-field crew, eventually finishing in a respectable 17th overall and 7th in class, but never quite meeting his pace from qualifying. A high number of retirements from Race one spoke volumes for how hard the cars were working, with Chris Headlam, Chris Baker, Sean Bicknell (exploded gearbox) and Andrew Kell (broken front splitter) all retiring – leaving only our class C car in the running!

The following morning dawned as beautifully as the first, and race two was for Andrew Walsh, somewhat of a repeat of Race one. In order to mix things up a little the front ten places on the grid were reversed, meaning Andrew started from tenth place. He scorched from the line in his trademark style, and some two minutes later as he came past the pits on lap one, he was already up to first place and pulling out a four second lead over a hard charging Chris Headlam. This lead remained constant and unchallenged for Andrew, and as with the first race he won without so much as even a glance at anything other than back markers. Down the field however, action was to be found with Stuart Kirkbride battling his was up to 14th place, giving him a 4th place in class. Vitthal struggled to find his pace for race two, and although his fastest lap of the race was a slight improvement from the day before, his initially promising start was not set to continue and he dropped down to some twelve seconds behind the rest of the field by race end, following a “near-spin” moment. Learning all the time however, we are sure Vitthal is improving! Also rather like Race one there were retirements from the C class, with Chris Headlam spinning off and Chris Bakers Audi-powered S1 Elise retiring after only a few laps. Only Andrew Walsh and Andrew Kell (Sinclaire tuned) finished class C for race two, making the poor C class look somewhat sparse.

All around an excellent weekend, with a double first place for Andrew Walsh, and some great testing and setup experience for Vitthal. Next for the series is the long drive up north to the Croft circuit…

Cadwell Park, a beautiful and challenging circuit – with a beautiful and challenging paddock area, known locally as … a field. We arrived at Cadwell Park on the Saturday evening (16th) ready for an evening test session, the journey had been fairly clear and we were all looking forward to another great weekend of racing. Evening testing passed pretty quickly and without any major incidents to report.

The following morning met us with rain. Lots of rain, and big northern rain drops at that. With a good soaking issued all around, Qualifying for A class was deemed a little risky with the sheer volume of surface water on the circuit, so the A grid went out behind the safety car to perform a sighting session as opposed to a fully qualifying round. Actual race starting positions were instead determined by the previous rounds finishing places – by the end of the A qualifying the rain had pretty much stopped and the sky was starting to clear. By the time B/C and 211’s rolled out to qualify, the circuit was starting to clear of excess standing water. The session went well and ended with traction-control equipped Martin Donnelly on pole, a truly stonking Ben Pitch (Class B!) in second place just ahead of our driver Andrew Walsh sitting third, with Chris Headlam and Steve Willams in forth and fifth respectively.

The first race to deal with was the class A, our man Vitthal was starting from the back of the grid (only his second round of racing!) and appeared to have an enjoyable race darting around at the back of the field with the other A class regulars, showing some real promise Vitthal set a fastest lap a good few tenths quicker than many of those ahead of him – just that consistency to work on now! This was the debut round for his new datalogging systems and just as with our own class C car, much learning came from the data gathered.

With the first class A race out of the way it was onto B/C/211 class. The meat of the day for us. With a mostly dried track, our interests in this race turned to a two-way battle between our own driver Andrew Walsh and Martin Donnelly, near constantly battling and exchanging places between first and second. A superb overtaking move by Andrew saw us into first at about the mid-point of the race, but a few laps later Martin regained the lead after a little tangle with back markers left Andrew lagging for a few moments. Martin never gave up the lead again, and despite some serious charging from Andrew to catch up, Martin took the flag in well deserved style. Congratulations that man! Ben Pitch bought in a superb third place with fastest lap times only a tenth or so clear of the C class cars. Man of the match that time around for sure.

Two races down, and two to go. We moved on to the second A class race with Vitthal starting one row clear of the back with Gary Broad and Hans Baumhardt bringing up the rear of the field for various technical reasons. Green lights on and Vitthal immediately transfers himself to the back of the pack so he can use the race as his own test session – a wise move as he would be the first to admit he is on a learning exercise at every round! Sadly in this second race Vitthal was unable to repeat the pace of his first, but still managed to be on the pace with the other back field runners, just a matter of confidence and consistency to keep the improvements coming and get him moving up the field. Another Sinclaire customer, Stuart Kirkbride put in a truly sterling performance and finished 2nd overall with an inspired and consistent drive – excellent work Stuart – and some silverware to show for it!

Time soon came around for the second B/C/211 race. Andrew was fired up to try and claim a victory after his second place in the first race of the day. Starting from the front row, next to arch nemesis Martin Donnelly, the first few seconds of the race promised to be pretty nervous for the Sinclaire crew as we watched on wondering who’d make the first corner, in first place. Logically Martin’s launch control should see him pulling ahead, but this system had given him a few issues earlier in the day and so it was in the hands of the racing gods… Green light came and Andrew tore out a magnificent start, back rotating the planet on its axis as he left the line with only a minor chirp of the rear wheels, and stormed off into the first corner a good car length of Martins 211. Phew. It wasnt long before Martin pulled that gap back and was starting to give Andrew some work to do, the two cars swapped places a good few times during the race, and it would be fair to say that a little BTCC style body contact took place, resulting in a slightly bent rear diffuser for us, and a burnt nose for Martin’s car. The battle raged for almost the entire race with places going back and forth between the two – eventually the finish came with Andrew crossing the line just under a second ahead of Martin to take the first place! Ben Pitch yet again put in a class defying performance in his B class car to finish a brilliant third place, with Rob Beves and Andrew Waters padding out the top five places.

All in all a good weekend, great data gathering exercise as always, and an interesting (if quirky) circuit to be at!

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2 x 1st : Brands Race 1, Donnington Race 1 & Race 2

3 x 2nd : Brands DTM Race 2, Castle Combe Race 1, Brands (Nov) Race 1

2 x 3rd : Brands DTM Race 1, Silverstone Race 1

8 x 1st : Spa-Francorchaps Race 1, Oulton Park Race 1 & Race 2, Snetterton Race 1 & Race 2, Cadwell Park Race 2, Silverstone GP Race 1 & Race 2.

7 x 2nd : Brands Hatch Race 2, Donnington Race 1 & Race 2, Spa-Francorchamps Race 2, Cadwell Park Race 1, Croft Race 1 & Race 2.

“WOW WOW WOW WOW WOW OMFG haha

This car is amazing!!!

Ive no idea why I waited this long to have this done, its awesome!!

Thank you so much!! Grin factor is 20 out of 10 right now haha

Did 100 miles last night and I wasn’t actually going out anywhere… The
ease of the car to drive is 1 million times better than before, clutch
drives like a normal car rather than being lumpy in the k, power
delivery is so smooth it doesn’t catch you out (yet…) and the brakes
and suspension feel like they’ve just been reconditioned, immense
package, a credit to Sinclaire’s chaps! You’ve done an amazing job!

Thanks and Regards,

DS”

It was another great weekend for Sinclaire Motorsport! Our weekend began early as usual with testing on a friday night track session, our driver Andrew Walsh has many hundreds of hours experience with Snetterton circuit, but the car had sprung some new changes since the last race and really did require a shake down before being subjected to race conditions over the weekend.

Testing passed well with the car performing faultlessly. As always, useful data was gathered from our internal logging systems and analysed to be sure the changes to the car had performed as expected. A quick scan of the numbers showed things working nicely, so testing was wrapped up very quickly and the car loaded onto the trailer, ready for its return to the workshop for its final pre-race checks. Friday evening we were introduced us to a new class A driver, Vitthal Chauhan, who was using our drivers own trackday/training car which was quickly pulled together to make a class ‘A’ racer for the weekend.

Following a return to base and check over, we arrived at Snetterton Circuit to a bright and beautiful sunday morning, it was only 7am and already the paddock was buzzing with activity. Our garage was soon set up and basic checks were made to our race car, including clearing the datalogging systems ready for the day. It wasnt long before cars were forming in the pitlane ready for the class A qualification. Vitthal had quickly settled himself into the seat of Andrews track car ready for his baptism-of-fire first ever qualify session and soon the ‘A’ grid passed smoothly out onto the track, including our supported drivers (Stuart Kirkbride and Joanna Hoddinott), and set about its qualify session. Within a few laps the usual (and deserved) leaders settled into their rhythm with Paul Quinn and Michael Edwards battling up at the front of the grid for pole position. Further back in the field Stuart Kirkbride set an excellent time of 1:23.370, only to later be stripped of the time and relegated to row 15, due to the car running 2kg under minimum weight! More fuel required! Elsewhere Joanna Hoddinott set a time of 1:26.070 to land herself on row 12 in 26th place in class, rookie Vitthal Chauhan rounded up the A class grid by setting a 1:33.390, on his first ever qualifying session – good work that man!

A few other race series qualify rounds soon passed and the time came for our ‘C’ class car to hit the track with Andrew Walsh at the helm. With everything checked, tightened and adjusted as necessary the car rolled out onto the circuit to make its presence known. Andrew put in a few laps with traffic before finally getting a reasonably clear run on lap 12 to qualify in pole with a 1:15.572, followed by Chris Pearson in second with a 1:17.300, though Chris failed to appear in the actual races due to a disqualification over power. Rounding up the top five were Martin Donnelly, Adrian Mardlin and Chris Headlam – all of whom put in great performances. Chris Randall made his return to the series for this round, but was suffering reliability problems with his Link-up Honda conversion and qualified back in seventh place with only a 1:17.671. As an interesting frame of reference, our time of 1:15.572 would actaully have qualified us in 20th place of the GT Cup field of 28 cars, despite us being on road legal Advan A048s, this interestingly would make the racer a possible GT Cup contender as slicks should in theory give around another second per lap, this along with removal of our existing power restriction would potentially see us down into the 1:13’s, making us a top ten GT car. Our qualify time was also a new Snetterton lap record for the class C cars, beating Chris Randalls time from last year of 1:15.796, though there was still more to come from Andrew Walsh yet. Following the qualification round the car was summonsed to the dyno, where TDi were power testing a number of cars, quite amusingly in a room thats around half the temperature of their normal dyno cell environment, not really ideal from a consistency standpoint. Despite the temperature differences our car went through the test on the class limit (which surely is the point?). However we were cautioned to “tune with a safety margin”, how does one do such a thing when the margin required only becomes clear after we’ve been tested off of TDi’s site for the first time? – a somewhat ill thought out comment.

With qualifying taken care of for all our supported drivers, race time for the class ‘A’ cars soon came around. Joanna Hoddinott, Stuart Kirkbride and Vitthal Chauhan all made it out to the grid without issue, and all three ran from lights to flag without problems, enduring some great battles on the way, culminating in Stuart finishing in an excellent 14th place considering his starting position on the grid. Vitthal ran particularly well for his first outing, pulling over a second off of his previous best lap time from qualifying as he got used to both the car, and the circuit. Joanna also finished well in 26th place from the grid of 32 cars. Paul Quinn and Michael Edwards took first and second place respectively, with Marcus Jewell (with Sinclaire Safety equipment, ECU wiring and gas flowed cylinder head) coming in a close third place, all three of the top runners in class ‘A’ being distinctly faster than any of the other cars in the field. Great racing in the class as always, and only a spin incident and some minor contact to dampen proceedings.

Thankfully the class ‘A’ cars look after themselves for the most part and require only a basic mechanical check over between races, which gave us a little time to kick back for a few minutes on the lead up to our first class ‘C’ race of the day. After some great racing in the preceeding GT cup, the pitlane filled with the sound of class ‘B’ and ‘C’ cars firing up, ready for the 13:10 race, which was a mix of the ‘B’ and ‘C’ classes. Following fire up, the racer gurgled its way out onto the grid in much the same well-behaved manor it always does, and following the usual parade and formation lap, the lights turned green for the start of another Andrew Walsh lights to flag victory, just as with our previous race weekend at Oulton Park. During this race Andrew also set a blistering new lap record for the class ‘C’ Elises, beating his own one-hour-old record, to set the new standard at 1:15.327, some .496 faster than Chris Randalls 2007 record, interestingly datalogging still shows more to come from the car… Chris Headlam once again drove an excellent race to bring himself in to second place and better his own qualifying time by well over half a second. Sean Bicknells Audi Powered Exige came in third place, but with the first hints of a light misfire towards the end as it came past our pit wall vantage point. Ben Pitch also put in what seemed to be the drive of a lifetime, mixing his ‘B’ class car up with the ‘C’ regulars and finishing in forth ahead of Martin Donnelly’s ‘C’ class 2-Eleven, a truly superb drive! Sinclaire customer Andrew Kell rounded out the top six with an excellent finish from his 12th place starting point on the grid, and no mechanical or electrical dramas following a recent Sinclaire rewire of a number of his cars electrical systems, and a replacement supercharger after his own unit decided to shear its input shaft off at Oulton Park! Vitthal, ever keen to gain experience also entered his ‘A’ class borrowed drive into the ‘B’ and ‘C’ races and again improved upon his previous race and qualify times as he gained further experience and confidence, our hat is off to him for driving every race he can get his hands on!

A typically motorsport specification lunch (burger and chips all around!) soon passed us by, and ever keen Vitthal was raring to get out into the second of the days ‘A’ class races, along with Joanna and Stuart, all three looking to improve their performances from the first race. Grid form up was the usual efficient affair with no dramas and everyone getting to their assigned places quickly and quietly thanks to the LOT guys and the Snetterton officials. Racing got under way quickly with Paul Quinn and Michael Edwards taking a clear lead as in the first race, but other great battles further down the line up bought some awesome crowd pleasing moments and ensured a watchable and gentlemanly race for all. Joanna had sadly lost some pace from her first outing of the day, but Stuart Kirkbride was truly on form and finished the race in an excellent 5th place. Vitthal continued his day of learning with “slightly” off-pace, but consistently improving times, more importantly perhaps he was enjoying himself! Good things to come from Vitthal as he continues his training under the watchful eye of our driver Andrew Walsh (www.carlimits.com).

More action on track from the Production BMW cars between races gave the ‘A’ class folks time to tidy things up and get themselves prepared for journey’s back home, even Vitthal decided that three races in a day was enough for one man, and agreed not to participate in the forth and final Elise race, this gave us time to make sure all was well with our car, and get Andrew Walsh belted in and ready to roll. After the BMW race it became clear that all was not well with the Armco barrier opposite the pitlane, following a minor shunt, and with the ‘B’ and ‘C’ class cars formed up ready to run, a delay ensued while essential barrier repairs took place. During the delay Chris Randalls Elise rolled out into the line up, having seemingly fixed his running issues. After 15 minutes in the pitlane it was decided to reduce the second race length from 30 to 20 minutes, which upset a few, pleased others, and made no difference to everyone else. At 15:40 (20 minutes late) the grid formed up for the final Elise race of the day, with the front ten cars on the grid in reverse order of the first race – this placed Andrew Walsh in 10th place.

After parade lap they stormed from the grid into the first corner, the view from our car (caught by our in-car camera) showed dust, more dust, more dust and then Chris Randall disappearing over the grass in what looked like some kind of demented law-mowing exercise following contact with someone, we’ve no idea who was to blame, but the confusion in the field meant Andrew Walsh made it straight up to second place behind Chris Headlam, following some super fast reaction car dodging. This continued up to the start finish straight for lap two, where Andrew got a far better run out of the Russell Hairpin and overtook Chris Headlam on the straight, from there on it was all positive, both car and driver stayed on form and drove to the flag, making our second win of the weekend, and 1st place finish number 4 in a row! Further back down the field, Chris Randall got himself back together from last place up to second (though he claims to be down on power, he did beat his own personal best from last year), but simply didnt have the pace to keep with Andrew Walsh, who lapped a clear tenth of a second faster, Chris Headlam settled into an excellent third place finish with Martin Donnelly, Ben Pitch (another star performance!), Adrian Mardlin, Andrew Kell and Steve Williams rouding out the top eight places.

A great weekend once again! One Pole position, two races, two wins, two fastest laps – job done. Our thanks as always to the LOT organisers, the officials and marshalls of Snetterton Circuit, and of course our thanks to Andrew Walsh for driving the nuts off of the racer once again! Next up, Cadwell Park!

Images courtesy of Onboardexperience.com

We arrived at Oulton Park with the bit between our teeth. The race weekend at Spa had allowed us to gather and analyse a lot of information, this gathering and analysis had led to a number of changes to the car, we were determined to put this to good use and come away with a good result from the weekend. The qualifying and races were all compacted into one day, so the car had to be on the ball from minute one as time for tweaking and adjustment was as good as non-existent between sessions.

With the usual array of unloading and preparation out of the way the night before, we arrived at the circuit on the Saturday morning ready for action. The car went out for qualifying and a great battle with Martin Donnelly ensued for the duration of the session, our driver Andrew Walsh set a 1:51.795 for pole, to counter Donnelly’s 1:52.103. Places looked secure until Chris Headlam pulled a corker on his final lap of the session in the form of a 1:52.031 to sneak second place from Donnelly. Sinclaire Motorsport supported driver Andrew Kell also qualified well with a 1:54.622 to bring him into seventh place on the grid, a good return to form for him after previous mechanical problems had kept him out of the car for the previous round at Spa.

With our car back in the paddock post qualify, the basic checks took place, tyres were changed and suspension was tweaked for the changing track conditions. Once again our new datalogging systems provided a useful insight to the life of the racer when Walsh is at the helm, in car video also helped to give us a feel for how things were working out (video to be posted soon). A few tweaks were made to a number of the cars systems, and within a few minutes we were fuelled up and ready to race with minutes to spare.

The first race got under way with Walsh leading in another Spa-style lights to flag victory, culminating in an advantage of 20 seconds by race end, along with the fastest lap of a 1:51.198 – another excellent victory for Walsh and the Sinclaire Elise S1. As with Spa, data was gathered from the session and is being compiled into useful information to allow us to keep pushing the car forwards with each event. Andrew Kell also ran a great race and finished forth following some awesome battles on his way through the field, accompanied by much cheering from the Sinlcaire area of the pit wall!

Race two was the handicap race. Walsh being winner of the first race meant he was positioned to the very back of the pack, giving him an entire field to scoot through in order to take a win. Some quick spreadsheet work proved the point that it was doable given our lap times, and despite the car being bearly visible from the pit wall, we had high hopes for the race. After what seemed like an eternity we were allowed to leave the grid and make our way through the field. The first few laps were playing catch up, but it wasnt long before our positions were racking up.

Keeping a close eye on the lap data from the pit wall, positions per lap were 23, 13, 7, 2 and then 1st by the penultimate lap. Walsh had truly done a mans job of it and battled the field all the way from the back, to the front, in the space of ten laps. The car had also proven itself once again, with a flawless performance from the first minute of qualifying to the last minute of race two. Kell’s luck sadly was no so good, this time a supercharger shaft failure left him boostless after six laps. Immediately following the race, dates were set for the fitment of a new unit to get him back into the fray for Snetterton!

We’re looking forward to Snetterton, and with a slightly fuller grid of Sinclaire supported drivers to keep Walsh company, Joanna Hoddinott, Stuart Kirkbride and Andrew Kell will all be there to fly the flag!

Spa-Francorchamps 2008 was a busy but successful race weekend for us, despite two of our supported drivers (Stuart Kirkbride (unable to attend) and Andrew Kell (present, but not in his own car)) not requiring our backup, a 30 minute race, and a more challenging 40 minute endurance affair which would see us refuelling the car mid-point through the race – ensured that we would have enough to do. This was a first for us, and involved the comedy of fire suits, and dragging our poor driver from the car while the fuel was poured in! Our build-up week began with some intense wet-weather testing on the Monday and Tuesday, a number of new data-logging systems had been fitted to the car the week before and had yet to be given any kind of real world shake-down, so with our driver Andrew Walsh already at Spa for the entire week giving lessons to a number of the Lotus On Track regulars, it seemed like the ideal time to get out there and gather some useful data, as well as give Andrew some time in the car prior to the coming race weekend.

Monday and Tuesday testing transpired to be wet, very wet in fact. The car ran flawlessly through a number of 20 minute sessions during monday and the data gathered confirmed that the new sensors and logging system were working exactly as they should, giving us a far more acccurate picture of the way the car is being used on circuit. Monday was pretty much signed off with a few tweaks of the dampers and a brief look over the data gathered that day.

Tuesday started in much the same way as monday, with a very wet track and no sign of any sudden dry out. Andrew went out in the car as soon as a slot was available and again made a few more tweaks to the damping. Our primary objective for tuesday was to evalute our fuel consumption and calculate a useable strategy for the weekend, it soon became clear that consumption at Spa was rather excessive (due to its sustained periods at full throttle and the massive high loads involved) and was definately going to be pushing our fuel system to new levels. Tuesday continued well, with a good number of track sessions and only a few running issues. Andrew enjoyed himself so much on track that we ran out of fuel at one point – bringing in an amusing cheer from folks in the garages as we were towed in, but a splash’n'dash fuel up and we were off again.

A session or so later the car was pulled in once again (with another cheer!), this time as a non-runner with an electrical problem. This was a curious problem of the most bizarre and unexpected nature. The standard Honda oxygen sensor had fractured into two pieces, the centre and its electronics (a heating element) fired their way from the outer ring of the sensor leaving the threaded section in the exhaust nearly intact, the heating element then had shorted out on the chassis and blown the engine management fuse, suffice to say it took us some finding to work out what had occured! In the process of the sensor short, wiring into the rest of the car had also been damaged and had to be disabled. The car now runs without a lambda sensor as this only provides fuelling correction on cruise, hardly an issue for a race car.

As well as running our racer on Monday and Tuesday, we took on the job of getting Joanna Hoddinott’s Elise S1 back up and running following a small unexpected thermal event (fire) at a track day a few days earlier. The car arrived at Spa on a trailer as a non-runner with 90% of the engine wiring burned out. A number of parts were identified as… crispy, and a list of replacement items was made prior to our departure back to England with the racer for final preparation and analysis before the weekend.

The team arrived back at Spa on Friday afternoon, located our permanent parking area (a serious step down as we had F1 garages for Monday and Tuesday), and got ourselves and the car setup and ready for Qualifying the following morning. During the time we were back in the UK, our driver Andrew had managed (thanks to the curse of Joanna!) to spring a leak on the radiator of his road going Elise S2, so we arrived kitted out to replace it during the down-times of the weekend. Joanna’s poor sautéed S1 was immediately pounced upon by our wiring guru Mark, and it wasnt long before the first attempts at a restart of the car were underway. Sadly it became clear within a short period of time that an ENTIRE engine loom was needed, this we simply didnt have, even back in England, so thanks to a few calls around by Joanna a good second hand loom was located in Ostende. Arrangements were made for this to be collected, and with that we made our way to the local bungalow park to settle in for the night.

Saturday morning arrived all too quickly and fuelled only by Pain au chocolat and coffee, the team got to work getting the Racer out for Qualifying, and making Joanna’s car run again using the loom that had been rushed to us over night. A few hours and some crafty fixes from Mark and the slightly burned S1 burst back into life, thus allowing her to enjoy a racing weekend at Spa.

Qualifying from our standpoint actually transpired to be quite a non-event as Andrew went straight out and set a pole time of 2:45.524, which remained for the rest of the session. Second and third grid slots were taken by Martin Donnelly and Sean Bicknell respectively, leaving us with little more to do than check the car over pre-race, change tyres, and then make a start on Andrews road car!

A decent night in the bar (thanks to our irish bar-man who was a true gent!) and some food led us gently into race day. The first race being the standard 30 minute event which crops up in the series from time to time. Again as with qualifying it was a straight forward affair from our vantage point at the pit wall, with Andrew taking a lights to flag victory placing us well over twenty seconds ahead of second place by the time the race was over. The car ran beautifully and we gathered masses of new data from the session which has allowed us to move the car in a positive development direction. A post race checkover of both our and Joanna’s cars showed that we had survived without incident, and though only minor, Joannas car had broken its exhaust flexy section, which took some comedy positioning from both Wayne and Mark to fix in situ.

With necessary repairs and checks taken place on both cars under our care, we were ready for the second race … the “endurance”. Though only ten minutes longer than the first race, those ten minutes make a big difference to us, in that, it is around 8 minutes more racing than we can carry fuel for. The 40 minute race has a compuslory pitstop for everyone, with drivers having to leave their cars for thirty seconds, except in our case where we had to have Andrew clear of the car for one full minute, most frustrating. The first half of the race ran pretty much as the first race of the morning, with Andrew leading the pack by a considerable margin. Around 20 minutes in, the first cars started to trickle into the pits for their 30 second stops. At 24 minutes (around 8 laps) we bought Andrew in for the fuel and one minute stop. The stop went as smoothly as could be expected, with Wayne squished into a fire suit that clearly was not his size, this slighly amusing event had occured as at the initial planning for the event, we were not meant to be performing the refuelling ourselves, and hence had no suits for the purpose. But a rapid change of duty for some of the series staff was made at the last minute, leaving us with the snap “who’s-doing-the-fuelling” decision within the team! Far from ideal circumstances, but as always we rolled with the punches.

Thanks to the fuel stop, Martin Donnelly had moved up into first place, leaving us in second, Martin however clearly deserved the place as his consistency was near robotic in its precision, and his motorsport-front equipped 2-Eleven really looked the part tearing down Spa’s long main straight and up into Eau Rouge with a line dissimilar to anyone else racing. Andrew pushed our car to the ragged edge to gain time back, but by the chequered flag we were still flagging some 37 seconds despite best efforts. Given our one minute stop and increased fuel load (and weight) a win was pretty much denied us by virtue of our fuel consumption. As mentioned though, no harm at all in loosing to Martin Donnelly, who I hear has done a lap or two of Spa in his career!

The weekend ended well for us though, and we cannot complain at a first and second place. We gathered fantastic information about the car thanks to our new logging systems, and pushed it way beyond anything it had previously experienced – 40 minutes of Spa is a lot of abuse for a car more used to performing 20 minute races on the circuits of the UK. Joanna’s car also completed both races without any major problems, so all in all a successful weekend. Our thanks to all involved in the administration of Spa and the Lotus On Track series for organising an excellent event, thanks also to Andrew for driving the nuts off of the racer like a man possessed!

Images Courtesy of Guy – Onboardexperience.com