Hawaii native and former part-time Indy Lights competitor Leilani Munter will return to the IRL competition at Chicagoland. Munter will drive in the Indy Lights finale for Team 3G with funding from Women's ExtenZe (a natural female enhancement supplement, not that there's anything wrong with that), Novicomm LED Lighting Technology and Ecobabble.
Munter has worked for more than two years to leverage her environmental activism into racing sponsorship. This announcement is the first real demonstration of success.
We suggest that Leilani look to much larger enviro-organizations. These would include the U.S. Green Buildings Council. In addition, many vendors and products have attained the Energy Star designation that is becoming essential for those who serve the leviathan U.S. General Services Administration. Gathering a consortium of such vendors would seem to hold promise.
We note that these ideas are not new. The late Paul Dana, perhaps the most savvy driver in IRL history with regard to finding sponsorship, essentially created the Ethanol Promotion and Information Council, his sponsor at Hemelgarn Racing and later at Rahal Letterman Racing. EPIC dissolved following the predictable push-back against Ethanol fuel. We suspect that the ever resourceful Dana would have been in front of the story and done something about it. Bobby Rahal, whose team inherited the EPIC sponsorship after Dana's death, was not prepared. We know this because Rahal Letterman is not, in fact, an operating IndyCar team this season.
Good luck to Leilani, Jaques Lazier and Greg Beck. The latter two are among our favorite people in all of IndyCar racing. We would love to see them get a real deal in place for 2010.
Roggespierre
Munter has worked for more than two years to leverage her environmental activism into racing sponsorship. This announcement is the first real demonstration of success.
We suggest that Leilani look to much larger enviro-organizations. These would include the U.S. Green Buildings Council. In addition, many vendors and products have attained the Energy Star designation that is becoming essential for those who serve the leviathan U.S. General Services Administration. Gathering a consortium of such vendors would seem to hold promise.
We note that these ideas are not new. The late Paul Dana, perhaps the most savvy driver in IRL history with regard to finding sponsorship, essentially created the Ethanol Promotion and Information Council, his sponsor at Hemelgarn Racing and later at Rahal Letterman Racing. EPIC dissolved following the predictable push-back against Ethanol fuel. We suspect that the ever resourceful Dana would have been in front of the story and done something about it. Bobby Rahal, whose team inherited the EPIC sponsorship after Dana's death, was not prepared. We know this because Rahal Letterman is not, in fact, an operating IndyCar team this season.
Good luck to Leilani, Jaques Lazier and Greg Beck. The latter two are among our favorite people in all of IndyCar racing. We would love to see them get a real deal in place for 2010.
Roggespierre
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