Images by Yonas Liu
“I will make our intentions very clear” said Pulse Racing head honcho “We want to win this event outright! I am sure we now have the car to do it. It’s just a question of whether we have enough track time in the lead up to the event.”
Looking at the car you can’t help but believe Paul means every word he says. From the rear the car resembles German DTM touring car – such is the rear diffuser arrangement, designed to push those tyres down as firmly as possible onto the circuit for one flying lap.
It is hard to believe that this car has also raced at every single Australian Superlap event since its inception. Every year it has been developed further and progressively got faster and faster with two top 5 finishes in the Open Class before putting rally (and now time attack) ace Steve Glenney behind the wheel who absolutely decimated the opposition in the Open Class last year.
“I guess you say we got a taste of the victory spotlight and we liked it” said Paul “Now we want to play on the big stage with the big boys and we have absolutely no intention of being an “also ran”. We want to be on the top step!”
The car has undergone a full rebuild in the past 12 months with an extensive lightening program being first thing on the agenda, followed by a wide body conversion.
“To be honest, last year we were basically running a modified road car, it was actually still even registered, we had street suspension and rubber bushes and virtually no aero except a front splitter and a wing” said Paul from his workshop in Menai Sydney “but this year is a whole different ball game, this year we are bringing a gun to the gunfight”.
With the weight taken out of the car, the team turned their attention to the aero. For this job, the team contracted a friend of Paul’s who also just happens to be an aeronautical engineer.
“These days, he makes unmanned spy planes but he did spend a few years in Formula One, and as soon as we showed him the project he was all over it.” said Paul “We have constructed many of the components in-house to keep costs down and used aluminium where possible instead of carbon fibre but we are assured it will all work perfectly and should easily be as good as anything else out there”
The engine has also seen another year of development but the Pulse philosophy goes way deeper than just finding more horsepower.
“I could tell you we have about 80 more horsepower than we did last year but even that isn’t exactly true as we never used all the power we had available in the car last year” said Paul “what we have done is refined what was already a good thing. We have broadened the torque curve to give a more usable power band and make the car faster out of corners, and we also have a fair bit more outright power.”
This all sounds extremely promising but where this team feel they have made the biggest leap forward is in the suspension area. “The cross members are all lightweight tube with the pickup points all modified to give perfect geometry whilst sitting much lower.”
“The coilovers are now Swedish-made Ohlins, built to our own Pulse Racing spec. These cost us serious money but we feel at the level we are playing at the damper control is crucial.”
Only time will tell if the Pulse team have what it takes to give the foreign invaders a run for their money. They are one of many that want to fly the Aussie flag on the podium, but there’s no denying the fact that this is one of the most hotly anticipated builds of 2011 and Steve Glenney certainly has the skills to put the team on top.
Guess we’ll all just have to wait until August the 5th and 6th.
