Tag Archives: Belcar Endurance Championship

American Festival Zolder

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The American Festival in Zolder was the last round of the Belcar Endurance Championship 2018.

After the turbo problems in Spa during the previous race, the car was fully prepared and also extensively tested on the circuit of Croix-en-Ternois. The car passed two full test days without any problems.

Jamie did free practice on Friday, during which a number of minor adjustments were made. The car had also made significant progress in that regard. On Saturday Jamie managed to place us on P19 with a fastest lap of 1’41″2, by far the fastest we had ever driven with our diesel Radical. My part of the qualification was severely interrupted by two red flags, which prevented me from doing a fast lap.

The start of the race on Sunday was taken by me. As there were no incidents on the track during the opening hour, I could do the first stint of the two-hour race. In addition, the car behaved properly, although I had a poorly functioning right front brake caliper, making it tricky under hard braking. I was able to move towards P15 with some intensive battles with GT4 cars. During that first stint I was able to lower the benchmark of the Radical to 1’40″045, a huge step forward!

After an hour, Jamie took over. However, he had to continue immediately as our refueling system failed, the pump was stuck. After just 15 minutes, the team got the pump working, and we immediately came in for our second stop.

He managed to keep the car out until suddenly he came back without any gears. Moments later, it appeared that a bolt had come loose, causing the rod to come loose from the shift mechanism. The problem was solved fairly quickly, so that we could finish the race without further problems!

I would like to thank the Oracle TSL team for their confidence in me this season, together we have taken a huge step in the right direction.

Racing Festival in Spa ends in a disappointment

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The Racing Festival in Spa was the 5th and penultimate round of the Belcar Endurance Championship 2018.

The car was rebuild after the fire on Thursday during the 24 hours of Zolder. Furthermore, some updates were made to the car, which did not immediately have the expected impact. After some last-minute changes, the behavior of the car had improved somewhat. The car also proved to be faster compared to our previous race in Spa.

During qualifying, Jamie put us on 20th place. He also took the start of the race on Sunday. However, after 20 minutes, fate struck again. A blown turbo went partly through the exhaust, but worse, also partly through the engine, which caused some serious damage. Our racewas over immediately, but the question remains whether the power source can still be restored.

To be continued …

A fires ends our 24 hours of Zolder too early…

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What had to be a revenge of the previous edition turned into a true drama.

The 24 hours of Zolder has been the highlight of the Belcar Endurance Championship a few years ago after its revival. Unfortunately that wasn’t the case for us (Oracle Cars by TSL).

On Thursday we did two free practice sessions in the morning in which we got to know our new diesel power unit. Due to wet conditions it was difficult to say where we would be in terms of raw pace.

In the pre-qualifying, the starting order of the super pole was determined. A qualification format in which each car was allowed onto the track one by one for one fast lap. The result of the super pole was then used to determine the starting order.

However, things went completely wrong in pre-qualifying. Eric saw the pit sign too late, so he only noticed an oil leak on the engine when the car was already burning. He finally parked the car at the entrance of the pits where they tried to extinguish the car …

When the fire was finally extinguished, it soon became clear that our weekend was over immediately. No 5th consecutive 24 hours of Zolder for me, and certainly no revenge for 2017 …

In the coming weeks, the team will examine to what extent the car is damaged and / or whether it can be repaired. To be continued …

Broken clutch ruins Zolder Superprix

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The third Belcar race of the season was held at 01/07/2018.
After our point finish in Spa, we were all keen to do it again in Zolder. We arrived in Zolder with a slightly faster engine, which made the gap with the front runners a bit smaller.

Since Raf was on vacation, Jamie and I took on the driving duties.

Everything went pretty well in qualifying on Saturday. At the end of the session I was able to put a 1’44″6 on the table which brought us to P23. The car was a bit faster compared to Spa, but we still had no chance against the much faster Normas.

Jamie took the start on Sunday. His times continued to fluctuate around 1’45-46 until after 20 minutes he was forced to come in with a broken clutch. Unfortunately, the team did not have a spare one, so our race was over immediately.

Unfortunately no points during the Superprix and immediately our second breakdown of the season. Developing a car yourself with limited budgets (and time) remains a challenging task …

In mid-August it is already time for the Zolder 24 hours, where we will try to do better than last year, where we lost about 7 hours due to mechanical problems.

First points for Oracle TSL!

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The Spa Euro race was the second round of the Belcar Endurance Championship 2018.

Jamie could not attend this time due to other commitments. Raf and I participated in this competition as a duo.

In the qualifying on Saturday the car was relatively reliable, but we were simply too slow compared to the rest of the prototypes. Our top speed was about 50km/h (!) lower than the fastest Norma, so the difference in lap times went as high as 24 seconds.

Since there was no time left to get the car mapped again, we decided to drive the race in this configuration to try to collect points for the championship.

I took the start for my account and luckily that went very smooth. Because of some pushing and pulling I could keep up with the GT4 cars in the first few laps. Once everyone got up to speed, I had to let them go. After 40 minutes, a turbo tube popped of, which forced me to enter the pit. Raf took over from me and after the repairs he was able to continue until we had to deal with an oil leak. Once this had been fixed, he could finish his stint without problems.

I got in the car for the last 40 minutes. I tried to keep the car in one piece so we would get some points. In the end, we finished P6 in our class, which was enough for our first points!

After a year and a half of bad luck and mechanical failures, we finally managed to gather points. It turned out that our diesel engine only produced 180hp that weekend, which easily cost us 7-8 seconds per lap.

The next appointment is at the end of June in Zolder. Where the weekend is dominated by the Blancpain Sprint Series.

Difficult start of the Belcar 2018 campaign

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The weekend of 7 and 8 April was all about the Belcar Endurance Championship in Zolder, the official start of the new season.

The program for the entire weekend was great, highlighted by the Blancpain Sprint Series (European GT3 championship) and the European GT4 Series.

Just like last year, I am part of the Oracle Cars team, reinforced this year by Turbo Synthesis Ltd. The car had received a complete make-over during the winter (both internally and externally), which led us to the Zolder in good spirits.

However, it was a weekend to quickly forget with a broken gearbox on Friday, a broken turbo on Saturday and an engine problem on Sunday.

Next appointment is on 30/06 and 01/07 in Spa for the second race of the season where we will have a brand-new engine that has already passed a full test day. More than 100 rounds have been completed on the Donnington (UK) circuit, allowing the team to collect valuable data. The first reactions were very positive, the new engine has a lot more power, so we in Spa we should be a lot more competitive.

Eleven Sports 24h of Zolder

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The Eleven Sports 24h of Zolder was the fourth and most important meeting of the Belcar Endurance Championship 2017 which was held at the 19th and 20th of August.

The team decided to attract a fourth driver, this turned out to be Raf van Belle.

The Cosworth engine in our Radical SR5 was replaced by a Volkswagen TDI unit. Mainly to improve the reliability and autonomy of the car.

A novelty this year was the obligated parade to the city centre of Heusden-Zolder where all cars were lined up and accessible for the public.

As usual there were different training and qualifying sessions on Thursday. There were two training sessions of each one hour, followed by two qualifying sessions of each one hour as well. At the end of the day there was a three-hour night session in which each driver had to drive at least three timed laps to be allowed to start.

During the first qualifying session we ran into some small issues concerning the engine management. These were fixed quite fast however. Afterwards I got a 1’42″779 out of the car, a time which remained unbroken for the rest of the day and put us 22nd on the grid.
In the evening we found quite a few issues with turbo pressure which tended to drop under heavy load. The team remained confident as they had an entire day to find the issue and bring the car in perfect condition to the start.

On Friday I wasn’t at the track myself, but the car was modified and improved throughout the entire day by the Oracle Cars crew. The turbo issue was also found and fixed.

On Saturday morning there was foreseen a short warm-up, the ideal moment to test the car and do some last checks before the race.

Raf took the start at 4pm and remained between P20-25 until he boxed after 40 minutes when the turbo pressure started to drop again. After a long intervention I took over from Raf but sadly I drove a three-hour stint with only in and out laps until the issue was finally found. In the end it became clear that one issue was causing another one which made us lose a lot of time. After three hours of doing test laps I was forced to get out of the car to not exceed the maximum driving time. Raf took over again and could drive an almost flawless stint.

It was then time for me to get some rest. When I arrived again in the box the next morning I heard Eric and Jamie had driven almost flawless stints as well, so we were still in the running.

On Sunday morning I drove my last stint. After a little more than two hours I almost lost the rear end of the car coming out of the slow hairpin. I was able to pit, but there became clear that the rubber from the left driveshaft was burned. The grease on the driveshaft was spilled on the engine which caught fire. Luckily, I was able to get out of the car fast enough.

After a thorough check it seemed that there wasn’t too much damage to the car. However, because there was less than one hour left, we weren’t allowed to re-enter the track. We were forced to retire the car after 23 hours and 40 minutes…

I’d like to thank the whole Oracle Cars crew for their endless determination and effort during this difficult weekend. Without them, we wouldn’t have gotten that far!

 

Progression visible during the New Race Festival in Zolder!

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After a difficult start of the season in Spa the team worked hard on the car to make sure we would perform better in Zolder.

The Belcar race was 120 minutes instead of the usual 180 minutes because we shared the weekend with the Blancpain Sprint Series.

On Friday we had quite a lot of time to test the car as we had two free practice sessions of 60 minutes each. I did the session in the morning en immediately felt that the car was better than it was in Spa. The new engine ran like a Swiss watch which gave us the possibility to focus on some setup work. To the end of the session we found a few minor issues which were easy to fix (small water leak, short circuit because of a faulty cable in the taillights,…).

These problems were all fixed in the afternoon so Jamie could put in some valuable laps. We tried a few more things setup wise which brought us a step forward.

A bit of a bigger problem that was also causing us troube in the first session was the stuttering of our shifting mechanism. This made upshifting from second to third difficult.

On Friday evening, the team worked hard to fix these issues but a broken compressor in our shifting mechanism during the last checks compromised our qualifying on Saturday. Eventually we had to skip this session so we had to start last on Sunday.

On Sunday our car seemed completely ready after a thorough check in the morning. No further issues were found.

I took the start of the race and could climb back to seventh overall in a bit less than 30 minutes. Sadly the gearbox of our Radical broke down after 40 minutes which meant the end of the race for us.

Despite the bad luck we could leave Zolder with a positive mindset. The progression we made was clearly visible!

 


Difficult start of the Belcar Endurance Championship

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The 22nd and 23rd of April marked the start of the 2017 Belcar Endurmance Championship. The first meeting was held on the legendary track of Spa-Francorchamps.

As already known, I am competing in this championship with a Radical SR5 serviced by Oracle Cars. I share the car with Eric Wouters and Jamie Morrow.

On Saturday there was a 60 minute free practice and a 60 minute qualification.

During the free practice the track was completely wet. After about three laps I put the car in seventh overall without taking any risks, the qualifying and race were going to be driven in dry circumstances. Sadly we also had to deal with electronical issues which kept us in trouble the whole weekend. Ignition coils kept breaking down without us finding the real cause of this problem.

Because of these problems, Jamie could only put in one fast lap in qualifying which was good enough for P12 overall.

During the race we ran into the same electrical problems but this time we were lucky Jamie managed to get the car back in the pits where we had to extinguish the car after a small fire started in the exhaust. A bit lucky there although our race was over.

Next meeting is planned the 3rd and 4th of June at Circuit Zolder where we want to give a stronger impression!