Mid-week Ramblings

Nothing too spectacular has been happening in the last week or so, but there are a few things worth mentioning.

• The aftermath from the piece on me in the Waikato Times has been quite amazing. Mum can't really believe it, it's been more than two weeks since it ran now and she's still getting people saying "I saw your daughter in the paper! Great article!"

This has been the best kind of publicity I've had to date. It's great in terms of getting people knowing who I am, what I'm into and what I'm trying to achieve.

It's also something that produces random comments, e.g. the team at my chiropractic clinic were all very excited because I had been in the paper.

• Competed in the Teng Tools Dual Sprint at Taupo raceway in the weekend. I was upset about a few things from the event, but now that it's Wednesday I've decided not to dwell on it. We'll see where competing goes for the rest of the year and next now.

• I'm using Formula One for study again! Last semester I used the popular and interesting brand of motor-sport for a study on the greening of the sport and the trickle down effect it creates. The current assignment is more of a research paper and I'm looking at the history of corporate sponsorship in F1.

• I've sent off my 'expression of interest' form for Rally Australia. Bring on 2009.

• Quite unrelated to motor-sport, but still thought-worthy, is the fact that I've been spending time at the snow this week and last. It's nice to have a sport or recreational activity that is completely unrelated to anything else I do, motor-sport included. It is also great in the fact that snowboarding is a 'single' sport, I don't need a whole team of people to do it-I can just go up the mountain and go at my own fast or slow pace depending on how the mood strikes me.

It also helps that we've had some of the nicest days of the season and the huge amount of snow that was dumped a month or so ago is still chill'n.

In the world of motor-sport:

• We've reached the first aniversary of Colin McRae's death. RIP rally legend.
• Norwegian Andreas Mikkelsen has been scouting for WRC cars for next season and has recently spent time testing with Citroen in France.
• Travis Pastrana has secured his third consecutive Rally America Championship. (-I'd love to meet this guy, really enthusiastic and charismatic in WRC Podcast interviews)
• In F1 Sebastian Vettel and his team Toro Rosso scored an amazing first victory at the Italian Grand Prix. At 21 years old, Vettel is Formula 1's youngest Grand Prix winner.