Venezuelan youngster battles cash crisis

DAVID THORPE, <a href=www.edp24.co.uk>EDP SPORTS EDITOR April 30, 2003 17:11

Rodolfo Gonzalez, the Venezuelan who moved to Norfolk when he was 10 years old to pursue his dream of motorsport stardom, has had to delay his step up to the main Formula Ford championship – because of a financial crisis back home in South America.

Now 16, Gonzalez is already an established celebrity in Venezuela, having already won several sporting awards for his achievements in karting on foreign fields.

In the Formula Ford Southern Zetec Championship last year Gonzalez – the youngest competitor in the field - did enough to prove to Snetterton-based Continental Racing that he would be ready to represent them in the senior version of the event.

But two weeks before the campaign opener at Mondello Park he received a bombshell which threatened to scupper his whole season.

The collapse of the Venezuelan petrol industry, which is responsible for around 80pc of the country's export earnings, had a devastating knock-on effect to a teenager living in Attleborough.

His main sponsor, petrol giants PDV, not only found themselves with different priorities – having laid off 16,000 workers - but were barred from exporting currency abroad.

Several weeks and an Atlantic crossing later, however, Gonzalez and his father, Carlos, have managed to get in place some alternative backing which will enable him to resume his attempt to follow in the footsteps of another South American who came to Norfolk to make his name - Brazilian Ayrton Senna – when the championship goes to at Silverstone on May 26.

By then he will have celebrated his 17th birthday, on May 14, and missed six of the 20 championship rounds.

"I have had to write off the first three meetings," said the former Eccles Hall schoolboy. "But I will hopefully be able to do the other seven, which are all double headers, as well as the Southern Championship, which is smaller but will be good experience.

"I will go with the team to Brands this weekend to help out where I can and should start testing next week.

"We have been going all over Venezuela trying to get people to back me. Nobody said no but it is now a much longer process because the economy there is so out of control.

"I have been in England for six years and I'm not going to give up now. But I believe that if I can survive this year then 2004 should be a whole lot easier."

The struggle goes on for former South American F3 driver Carlos, who returns to Caracas this weekend in an attempt to tie up a few more loose ends while his son is in Kent with the Continental team.

But he insists: "It has been like a football match where your team is 3-0 down with ten minutes left. You still think your team can win - but you know it's going to be tough."