Most of the team arrived at Mallory Park around 4pm on Monday, set up awnings/tents etc, and then put the vehicle in the pit area. We set up the dyno etc, and managed to get the vehicle part scrutineered before having some food around 7-8pm. Both Frances and Jenny (the drivers) arrived after that and we set up more tents. We made some further preparations on the vehicle ready for the next day.

The following morning we completed the scrutineering with driver egress, mirrors and horn etc ready for safe operation on the track. We also carried out some brief engine testing with the competition fuel before setting out for our first run.

The weather on Monday was great, but during the night things became unsettled and cooler and rather annoyingly for us there was a heavy shower 2 laps into our first run. The ability of the driver to see through the windscreen is poor at the best of times because of the shallow angle let alone when it is raining. Usually the drivers are ok to stay out in light rain but as it was heavier Frances decided to pull in at the end of the 2nd lap.

Jenny did the second run (her first ever at Mallory Park) and achieved 4641mpg. This slightly low result was due in part to her inexperience of the particular track, and also due to the tyre pressures being on the conservative side. We usually try to get a safe banker run in first before taking more risks.

Armed with this result we pumped the tyres up a little and Frances did her second run. Getting the driving strategy right is extremely difficult to do especially when the wind is unpredictable. Basically we do 2 burns up the hill on the start/finish straight each lap (we go in an anti-clockwise direction!). Any variation in the burns or wind conditions can easily upset the average speed.  This run had around 110 seconds to spare and resulted in 5068mpg.

Learning from Frances experience, Jenny then tried a slight change to the burn start speed and we achieved our best result of 5448mpg.

Frances then tried a different idea to reduce the burns on alternate laps, but she found this tricky and the 4760mpg result suggested this was not the best strategy.

Thanks once again go to the sponsors who have supported us over the years. During the year leading up the event I have had the support of a final year student Nathan Morgan, who has been re-examining the fuel preparation of the engine, and although the vehicle gave very similar results to 2011 we hope that there is further performance to be gained next year. I am very grateful for the work that Nathan has contributed towards the project.

I am also grateful for a second student Sam Lock who looked at ways to analyse the data logged during runs on the track.

THANKS ALSO MUST GO AGAIN TO THOSE VOLUNTEERS WHO MADE THE EVENT HAPPEN AGAIN. - RIK, JET, MIKE, ELAINE etc.

It is with great sadness to many of the UK competitors of the Shell Eco-Marathon event that Shell decided not to continue supporting the UK event after 2010. The intention is that teams would travel to the European event from the UK to continue competing.
As a team that supported the European event twice (in 2004 & 2006), we know only too well the cost of doing this is well out of the reach of most of the teams. Shell do provide some money for fuel costs to get to the event, but there are significant other costs including ferry prices, food tickets and accomodation.
The UK Eco-Marathon has become a brilliant event for introducing young minds to the practical world of engineering and it is a severe loss for all the enthusiasm and hard work to be lost with the seemingly inevitable closure of the event.
Following a period of disbelief that Shell would do such a thing, one of the competitors in particular has refused to accept the death of the event. He has more or less single handedly managed to rally some very limited financial support to keep the event going on a reduced scale at Mallory Park.
All of the teams that took part on the event at Mallory are extremely grateful to Rik for his enthusiasm and hard work in making the event happen.
We did little development to the Team Green vehicle during the year following the uncertainty of the event, but we were very pleased to attend the new event entitled Eco-Marathon for Schools.
The last time Eco-Marathon vehicles had ventured on the circuit at Mallory Park was back in 1996, we were all keen to explore the circuit and work out a suitable driving strategy.
Frances managed 5 runs in total, with results ranging from 4036mpg to our best of 5420mpg. The event was very friendly and involved many volunteers who all helped to make it a great success.

As usual the build up to the event resulted in the lack of sleep from many late nights preparing the vehicle for the competition, but these were forgotten about as soon as we arrived at the impressive race circuit on Monday evening. The tents were soon erected and the vehicle and dynamometer were set up in the pits ready for scrutineering first thing on Tuesday morning.
This enabled us to be the first team to be scrutineered and the  vehicle passed as usual without any problems. We were then given some official petrol to be used for our testing and the measured runs. For some reason that was not entirely clear, we found that the engine did not run very well on this fuel on the dyno and there was a severe flat spot around the engine speed that is used when the clutch is biting during acceleration. Initially we spent some time experimenting with different ignition timings and fuel settings but with limited success. We also went through a long series of checks to make sure that nothing else was causing the problem. After some time and a slight improvement we decided to see how the vehicle would perform on the track and so Jenny carried out 4 test laps. She found that although the engine picked up really slowly that she was able to do the burns that she wanted to.

On this basis Frances our other driver went out for a measured run, but because it was her first time driving the vehicle for 2 years she took a few laps to adjust back into the routine. This meant that at one point she needed to catch up about  5 minutes! Amazingly she managed to do this and came in just 2 seconds within the alloted 40 minute time restriction, but sadly it was a very poor run and we achieved just 3569 miles per gallon. Following some more adjustments Jenny went out for another run and she achieved our best petrol run for the 2 days with 5575 miles per gallon. The  vehicle still struggled to get off the line so we thought that there was still potential for improvement and after the barbecue provided by Shell we set about further investigation into the problem using the dyno.

We decided that because the vehicle had achieved over 5000 mpg, the engine health could not be too bad so we checked the clutch operation and transmission. This did not reveal anything new, neither did various tests on the dyno, so we turned our minds from the flat spot to an idea that we had originally wanted to try involving a different style fuel injector. With the help of Rob Dunn a final year student who had been working on improving the fuel atomisation during the year, we adjusted the fuel map to suit the flow characteristics of the new injector. Sadly testing showed the same flat spot problem was still there, and perhaps even worse. As it was a new injector we then varied the overall fuel scaling factor in steps of around 5%, trying it each time. Just as we were about to give up, the engine started to respond favourably to the extra fuel and so we went on until at an additional 39% fuel enabled the engine to start strongly without any flat spot. It did however stall at just over 2000rpm where the mixture became too strong.

With this breakthrough we then locally increased the fuel map by around 39% during the clutch operating range and the engine pulled strongly right through the speed range. The time had now reached 11pm, so we decided to call it a day and apply the same local fuel richening to the normal injector the next morning. Various other minor adjustments and tweaks were made to improve the  vehicle rolling performance and then we queued up for the opening of the track at 9.30. During the Wednesday we managed 4 petrol runs, 1 of which was aborted and 2 full LPG runs. The weather like Tuesday was very hot, but more windy and so not quite as good for the results. The petrol results seemed to decline very gradually from the previous day, but the 2 LPG runs achieved 5505 mpg and 5597 mpg.

Our main lpg competition during the past few years has come from the French team Lycee Marcel Callo, and normally they seem to be able to beat us comfortably. However this year their best was around 5400 mpg so they were dismayed to see that we beat them for a change. This made us best LPG and gave us a silver cup which was very pleasant. We understand that Shell want to withdraw the LPG category next year, so we are looking at the possibility of running with Ethanol(E100) as well as petrol.

We have a significant amount of data recorded from the runs at  Rockingham and are in the process of trying to learn from it how we can improve the performance.  

The best overall result over 9000mpg (E100) was achieved by the French team from TIM INSA GM and the second (6000+ mpg) by the Portugese team Eco Veiculo from Universidade de Coimbra. There was one more French team with 5644mpg leaving us with 4th and 5th overall which we are very pleased about. 

Thanks once again go to the sponsors who have supported us over the years and particularly to the 2 final year students Alex Wolstenholme and Robert Dunn who carried out their final year projects on the vehicle. Alex was using an engine simulation package to improve the engine performance and Robert was using visualisation techniques to improve the atomisation of the fuel delivery system.

As usual we arrived at Rockingham the evening before the test day and set up tents and the vehicle in the pits. The next morning after an early start we managed to get through the various scrutineering checks and were out on the track testing by about 10.30am on Tuesday 30th June.

Conditions were very warm throughout the day and our poor driver Jenny suffered temperatures in the mid 40s inside the cockpit. Following a couple of test runs when we were able to cycle along side the vehicle, we went on to the competitive runs from 2pm. Our first run actually gave us the best run of the 2 days and we achieved 5755.2mpg consuming just 5.6 grams of petrol. This put us straight into first place overall until a French team pipped us with 5782mpg using LPG. The following day came with more humid weather and at times it was unbearable, especially for Jenny who did not complain at all.
Unfortunately our results did not improve and a Portuguese team put in a run of 6500mpg with petrol taking the overall lead. We tried to respond to their result but it seemed that the vehicle just was not rolling well enough. I think in hinds sight that the front brakes probably were rubbing slightly. We tried a single run with LPG but had some problems and only achieved 4705mpg. We then returned to petrol and gradually improved over the last 2 runs but did not beat our best from the first day. Obviously we are pleased to be the best UK team and third overall, but we ended the event feeling slightly frustrated that we had not beaten our previous best result.

Daniel managed to improve on his last year's result with 651 mpg so he was pleased with this. Once again without all of the sponsorship help none of this would have been possible, so I thank you on behalf of the team.

As in 2007 we chose to take the trailer instead of the caravan to maximise the carrying space. Daniel's vehicle - Team Greenhorn was fixed onto the trailer as well.
We managed to set off and arrive a little earlier than previously, which was useful in setting up the vehicles in the pits before they were closed for the night.

The work of preparing the vehicles for the scrutineering inspection continued early on the wednesday morning and by mid morning we were out on the track practising and getting used to the conditions. From 2.00pm we were able to try competitive runs and so Jenny went out on petrol. Frustratingly this was one of 3 runs when she was not able to complete a run. This time it was because the battery went flat on the 6th lap and she could not restart the engine. Confused as to why the battery had lost its charge, we carried on and Frances went out and completed her first competitive run successfully achieving 5574.8mpg in windy and drizzly conditions.

At 4.30pm Jenny then went out for her second run (this time with LPG), but again the battery ran flat on the last lap! The track then closed for the evening and we inspected the electrical circuit to find out why the battery was not lasting. There seemed to be no problem with the battery having enough charge to start the engine because we cranked it for about twice the number expected during a run without any issues, but on closer inspection we found that it was possible under certain circumstances for part of the ignition ciruit to be drawing current during coasting and consequently drain the battery. We enjoyed the now traditional barbecue provided by Shell and then we continued to work on the electrical system inserting an extra relay.

Daniel's vehicle had been successful during the day but the cycle computer had been set accidentally on the wrong wheel size setting giving an incorrect speed reading. This meant that it had been very difficult for him to achieve the minimum average speed. He also needed a replacement cycle freewheel which a friend helped him to get locally.

Again after an early start we prepared the vehicles for the second day, happier, knowing that we understood why Jenny's runs had failed, and that we had been able to make appropriate changes. The first driver on Thursday was Frances and she ran on LPG achieving 5139.8mpg despite the windy conditions. Jenny then began her third ill fated run which this time ended because another vehicle blocked her path, forcing her onto the grass beside the track. Understandably upset by the very poor driving of the other vehicle, Jenny was beginning to think that she was not going to be able to complete a run at all. Frances then completed the best run of the two days with 6030.8mpg using petrol with windy but bright conditions. As Jenny prepared to go out again there was a heavy short shower of rain that drenched the track This meant her results was lower as expected with 5046mpg. We then changed over to LPG again and completed our last two runs, beating out best ever LPG result - these were 5700.2mpg and 5776.2mpg. Perhaps it was only right that the better result was achieved by Jenny, after all her previous bad luck.

Amongst the 70+ entries were several international teams and the best of them TIM (INSA at Toulouse, France) achieved 9037.8mpg. We were 6th overall, 4th in the petrol category and 2nd in the LPG category. We are pleased that we have improved our best ever result at Rockingham, but are always hungry to do better. Daniel achieved a creditable 500.9mpg, which is also an improvement on his last attempt, so he is happy and enthusiastic to develop his vehicle.

Once again without all of sponsorship help none of this would have been possible, so I thank you on behalf of the team.