Racing is bloody expensive, we all know that, and no one knows it more than the racers themselves. Not everyone has a wealthy parent to pay the bills; more often than not, the racer has to raise the money himself, as well as organise bikes to ride, mechanics to work on them, travel, accommodation, entry fees, food, spares, tyres, the list is endless. Everyone gets paid before the rider/owner of the team, if he gets paid at all.
South African racer AJ Venter has spent his life facing racing mountains and conquering them and right now he is in Europe, taking part in the North West 200 in Ireland before heading to the Isle of Man for another shot at the TT, taking place over the last week of May and the first week of June.
Every time he takes part in the TT, he gets better, as do the results, but that still doesn’t mean that he can relax for an instant and certainly not when a sponsor pulls out, as has happened to him whilst he is racing and preparing at the same time.
AJ has reached out to the motorcycling community in SA for help and he has set up a Back-a-Buddy page (a bit like GoFundMe) to enable anyone to contribute. It doesn’t matter if it’s R50 or R5,000, anything will help.
If you’re interested in letting AJ fly the South African flag at the TT, please click on the link.
As soon as he’s back in the country, we’ll pin him down for an interview. We tried to do it before he went but, not surprisingly, he was a bit busy. There will be some good stories to hear when he’s back.
