It might seem like a World Class 1200cc whinge, but this is my crack at trying to be the serious motorsport societal columnist…

I would need to look through the past years worth of point scores to see it, but has a Vee ever in the history of Vees, ever won a championship when they have missed scoring points for an entire round completely? I know that from the proud and the few who actually read this, that they may be in some sort of support for the idea, but is it possible, now with me sitting out the Wakefield season opener today, that I may be able to come out and win this season's series, even if I have a flier of a season from here out? Will I even be able to afford it?

I know on the other hand there will be other sitting there reading this going "She is bonkers. She has no chance for starters and probably never did have. An un-proven entity." But that is what is fuelling me with this whole idea to race. To get out there and prove myself. Unlike many others I haven’t had years of Go-karting experience, nor unfortunately have I had tones of Vee racing experience anyways, due to my team's continuing financial difficulties and our accident last year. But what I do have is passion. But it seems that in trying to finance this passion, we find things start to go pear shaped.

Now I am sure I will get some mail from those who read this, that at some point in this following story that I am wrong... but I will go ahead and give it a crack anyways.
In F1, the deciding factor as to a team's longevity is not how many races they win, but how good they are at negotiating the funds to get out there and do it. One could say that this is the same across the board and is shown perfectly in every V8 supercar race weekend where Anthony Tratt's team got out and did some happy laps for Toll, coming absolutely no where. Jackie Stewart, when forming Team Stewart Grand Prix, realized this and played it to his advantage before even stepping onto the world stage. He approached companies who hadn't before been linked to motorsports, and showed them how they could speak to their wider audience through the sponsorship and advertising on the car in the world's premier category of motorsport.

People sponsor people in sport for one reason only. To be associated with winners. National Australia Bank and Telstra are closely aligned with Australia's more traditional, Olympic style sports teams for events such as the recent Commonwealth Games. National Australia bank even has minute by minute photo updates on their websites to inform their online bankers of the achievements of "Their team... their Golden Team." This shows that they are there supporting their team on the entire way. But what about the support for motorsport?

In higher categories in Australia, everything from V8s to Aussie legends, we find that the cash seems to flow thick and fast from Australia's business community, but anything 'below' this is lucky to see any of the same generosity, even at a proportional percent less due to the level and coverage of the category. For Formula Vee we have been blessed over the past few years of having full to partial coverage of our category on SBS's Speedweek and Inside Speed on Fox, but how much effect is loosing this coverage now going to have on our category's ability to find further sponsors? For our team, I know that even with the coverage and promises to be at the beck and call of sponsors for all promotional purposes, that this was still not a large enough lure. Whilst we still promise this service and more, what else can we do to ensure that out of the hundreds of proposals for sponsorship which we have already sent out to legitimate potential sponsors, that they will read the proposal, consider it and then give it the green light?

We will continue to knock on every door we can and will continue on with what we have, no matter what. But sooner of latter we are going to need someone to step up and give us the chance that we need to become a team that isn't just circulating but dominating. So that next time we have a gearbox decide to give up, we will have the money to get another one. And next time we have an off, we don't sit out the whole season and then some of the next. I am getting WAY too old for that and I am sick of coming Last.

I want to be like John Steffensen, 400m Gold medalist at the Comm games.I want to be able to say “I have come Last for the LAST time!"

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