WOW! Well, who would have thought that in the space of 1 week what has happened to me COULD happen!
Let me back track!
On Monday 17th I was invited to an interview for the Women in Motorsport Scholarship, run by the A1GP of Nations and The Premier's office for Women. At this interview I was introduced to some members of the office for women as well as Dale Walsh from the Australia A1 team. At the interview I was asked about what I had been doing to activley get a career in Motorsports and what I was planning to do in the future.
The outcome of this was that in 24 hours I found out that I was the lucky recipient of the Women in Motorsport scholarship. For those of you who are in the dark about what this scholarship entails, please let me explain to the best of my knowledge.
Sandra Nori, the Minister for Women, Sport and Rec. and Tourisim challenged Alan Jones and the A1GP to have more women activley involved in Motorsports, specifically the new category of A1. The result of this is a scholarship for one woman aged 18-25 years old, living in NSW with a passion and drive for a future in the motorsport industry.
The prize consists of taking part in the A1GP rounds at Eastern Creek(4th-6th November 2005) and Dubai(7th-12th December 2005), as an active member of the Australian A1GP team. The position will be relevant to the current skills of the winner and will allow her to hopefully extend herself and learn alot through the experience!
When phoned on Tuesday afternoon(After sweating on it all day!!!), I absolutly FREAKED out! I pity poor Kate Parker who was the lucky lady who had to call me and tell me that I had won. I totally screamed in her ear! This is the chance of a life time! Not only the going to Dubai bit, or the getting to get my hands dirty with the world's new premier racing category... but the whole working under Alan Jones for guys like Will Davison, is what REALLY gets me!
I don't know where to start with all the other things that happened after this, but I will try to put some sort of chronellogical order to it!
Wednesday brought with it the news that I would have the chance to thank the Premier and Minister Nori for their efforts, in person. With the date moved forward to Thursday morning... early, it meant that I was keeping with my tradition of leaving college dinners early to head back to Sydney for race related business!
Thursday morning rolled around and I was picked up in a cab at Central station by the lovely Dianne from Sandra Nori's office for the start of one of the biggest days of my life so far!
From central we went to the old Parliament house where the Premier's offices are and were escorted about for a bit as we waited for things to get underway.
Parked in the Domain(A big park in Sydney where heaps of music festivals, carols by candlelight, etc are held) was the show car for the A1GP of nations along with a whole heaps of people from the offices of the Premier and related ministers. Here I was introduced to the car, my local member for Parliament in Wollongong(Norene Hay) and alot of the people that make the press conferences and every day movements of the members run smoothly. Here I was coached in the day's proceedings.
Showtime. And the weather didn't really seem ready to co-operate. As Sandra Nori appeard with her entourage, so did A1 Australian Test driver Peter Hackett. As the rain came down we re-located to the Premier's conference room where I was introduced to the media and welcomed to the Australian A1 team by Roy Pater and Rod Paech. After meeting the Premier, Morris Iemma, I was shoved in front of the cameras and told to "Start talkin' girl!"
Things went well enough that as the weather eased and I was allowed back outside. Here I was interviewed by Fox Sports(Yes! Me! Fox Sports! I can't believe it either!) and Auto Action Magazine(Yes, me and AA!!!). I got to go through the car a bit more with Peter and learned how unique and well packaged they really are! Lolla have done well for themselves with the A1 cars and it will be great to see them at the Creek and then get to play with it!
Afterwards things settled down as I came back to Wollongong to get interviewed by the Illawarra Mercury. This story should appear in the Saturday 22nd October edition.
It has been quite a Whirlwind though! But I am loving it completley!
Next Friday I have Media training, Travel shots(As in Typhoid vaccinations!) and I finally get to rest a bit before exams start.
I will definantly be using this as a means to keep everyone up to date with my movements and what is going on with the scholarship!
With this, I also have some more good news with a news sponsor coming on board with Lasts and Lasts to help us get through with our National's regularity campaign. Coastline Printing have come on board as an In-Kind sponsor and have so far been doing a beautiful job with all of our print media. If you are a potential sponsor, please ready yourselves for some of their beautiful work coming to you in the mail!
Thanks again to Coastline, A1GP of Nations, the Aussie A1GP team, The Premier of NSW, The office for Women and everyone else who have made these oppertunity's possible for me!
Stay tunned now!
Luv Kirsty
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www.speeding.to/lasts
