Sponsorship

[lovef1]

Hello there peeps,

I've been racing karts for a while now, I plan on moving onto cars. I was wondering how do I find sponsorship to fund my racing? As usual, thanks in advance.

[andy97]

Ask yourself why a company would make a decision to invest in you and what return are they going to get for their outlay. Money has to work. Sponsorship has to be justifiable.

99% of us pay for our racing ourselves.

Even those drivers with stickers on the car are likely, at best, to get a bit of a discount off parts or oil etc, or are being backed by a family firm.

[andrewc]

"What's in it for us?" is the question any sponsor will ask of you or themselves.

A sticker doesn't cut it.

[GORDON STREETER]

I think we have all been there before ! It's hard to get anyone to give you anything let alone actual money unless it's family/friend or an idiot , A sticker for "Fred's Fish n Chip Shop" ain't going to increase his trade when you are at circuits all over the place unless it's a franchise, it's a catch 22 and until you have a proven track record with loads of wins at a decent competitive level I wouldn't think you have any chance, especially as you haven't even raced a car competitively on a track !
Sorry not being any help but that is reality I'm afraid as most racers (even F1) have to come up with serious money to come out to play at weekends.
I suppose you could just be having a laugh and winding us up

[SidewaysFeltham]

Originally Posted by lovef1

Hello there peeps,

I've been racing karts for a while now, I plan on moving onto cars. I was wondering how do I find sponsorship to fund my racing? As usual, thanks in advance.

Is that all

No problem, then!

All you do is adhere to the following prescription:

1. Start racing cars: ideally, say Formula Renault:

2. Next move up to F3:

3. Win each and every major championship:

4. Somehow, buy a new GP3 car: even talking a bank into giving you a large loan as did Nicki Lauder in then F2:

5. Once you have won the GP3 championship you might and I stress might, be offered a testing role by an F1 team. Like David Coulthard, for example.

6. Then you waits............... until a team driver is ill, injured, or perhaps left for another team; and you show amazing promise, driving all around the established championship leaders and setting new track records.

Simple as that!

[GORDON STREETER]

Or re mortgage your house (if you have one) like Mansell, or a bloke I know who lost his house and wife, and that was just to go clubbie racing !!!!!

[SidewaysFeltham]

Interestingly, Gordon, I used to regularly meet Guy Edwards in the early 1970s: nice bloke.

He was the man who painted his then Lola T212 (2 Litre Sports Racing) in light blue with Barclays Bank International decals, loaded it onto his trailer and unannounced drove into the mansion owned by the chairman of Barclays Int early one Sunday morning!

He knocked on the door and the chairman, clutching the Sunday Times and in slippers opened the door and was rather exercised! "Who the hell are you and what do you want my good man!"

Guy said, "I have something to show you which will prove of great interest!"

Whereupon he marched over to the Lola, and whipped off the covers........

I was next to Guy in the pits at Brands testing one morning shortly afterwards and asked him if this was true: he told it was absolutely correct!

Worked well, for Guy was testing his brand new Lola F 5000 which he'd picked up from Lola just a day before!

Naturally In Barclays Int. colours and they had funded the whole package cost plus a season's F5000 racing.

Edwards now runs a sponsorship company. He also wrote a book which is sadly now very scarce. Good hardback copies go for around £300.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-lis...&condition=all

[mountainstar]

Guy's book was a great resource and really hammers home that asking for sponsorship you need to provide a benefit in return. I think it really lays out a good plan to get from A-Z. I think the main thing that would need to be updated is the technology involved. Compared to back then, these days we have access to inexpensive multi media tools, video, internet and other things.

The book could really do with an update, but I've heard for a while that Guy is not in great health and I'm sure his son's death has been hard on him.

A lot of the things in the book I did not use exactly but it gave me the right idea about a lot of things. I haven't cracked it open for years and should probably read it again.

[djinvicta]

It's hard to get anyone to give you anything let alone actual money unless it's family/friend or an idiot

Blimey, now Im an idiot!
Pete Thurston went racing and I paid for it, being unable to get a licence myself, purely because the 5 Litre Mk1 Escort was meat and it went sideways more than in a straight line. And yes, it was very well known and it actually did get my Company known more. BUT: I did it for fun, it cost me FAR more than we ever got Business out of it.
Would I do it again? Of course.

[SidewaysFeltham]

From its earliest days, European motor racing relied on wealthy aficianados, and very occasionally mega-wealthy people such as Dorothy Paget, who raced horses as an owner, restored Leeds Castle in Kent and also financed the Bentley Boys.

Drivers such as Whitney Straight, Earl Howe, and a host of other notables like Birra, Woolf Barnato etc enjoyed vast inherited wealth to indulge their passion.

John Cobb, for example, was a wealthy furrier.

Eventually, naturally, motor manufacturers perceived motor racing as an excellent advertisement for their mainstream product: and other associated manufacturers saw significant advantage, such as petrol, oil, tyres etc.

Now, of course it is driven too much, IMHO as with so much "Sport", by non-motor industry money: fags, until fairly recently, energy drinks and a range of FMCG earning vast revenues for the brands.

I was extremely lucky: my retail automotive business paid to run the team as advertising in order to build the specialist high performance car and race prep/tuning biz and after a couple of fairly insignificant jobs (well in scale insignificant, however I guess sorting out the tuning on a Lambo Espada in the early 1970s was pretty unique!), the man who asked me to complete the work turned out to be a motorsports nut and a multi-millionaire!

He asked me to call on him to chat about something and the net result was me a day or so later collecting an almost brand new FII car + spares with his company paying all costs for two seasons!

Suddenly, then, the team had arrived, sort of...........

However, without arrogance, we were very good at what we did; but I had had to work my nuts off to reach that point.

Which really arrives back at the beginning: to gain meaningful sponsorship, you have to really shine and stand out from the rest.

Or simply put, you have nothing to sell.

[GORDON STREETER]

Originally Posted by djinvicta

Blimey, now Im an idiot!
Pete Thurston went racing and I paid for it

So Pete wasn't a friend or family then ?

[djinvicta]

Actually Gordon, no. We never sociallised. He just drove balls out, had no fear, and went sideways when I asked! Plus the Mk! was a piece of V8 meat....