Pre-car Sponsorship

I am looking to get some more experienced input on a couple of questions that I have...

I would really like to get into a car and start racing with my local club, but I have the common problem of having no money as I am currently a college student.

My primary question is, is it kosher to ask local businesses to sponsor me before I even have a car to race, as I would need the sponsorship to get a car. I could guarantee them exposure on the clubs website, the clubs Facebook page, as well as my Facebook page and of course exposure on the car once it is purchased.

The second related question, how much is this kind of sponsorship worth? Can I go the business expecting $500 for this exposure? (keeping in mind the club only races about once about a month) Or is that too much/too little?

I know it may be a long shot, but if it gets me into the drivers seat then I am willing to give it a shot.

Thanks for any input!

I find it's hard to get sponsorship unless you're already a known competitor/Podium finisher.

I lucked out and already have a sponsor for my race car.

But because it's unproven, the sponsorship merely comes in the form of getting parts through this company/person at cost. (Boss Performance, buy things from him, he's a great guy!)

Which is awesome!

However, even though i'm a step ahead of you and HAVE a car... i'm pretty sure anyone would just laugh me away if i started asking for money.

That said, i'm not as experienced in this as many of the dudes here are.

What kind of racing are you talking about? How many people will be watching these races? Would you be willing to accept something other than cash for your initial sponsorships (i.e. discounts, etc.)?

Might want to get answers to those questions before they get asked.

what a bizzare first post......

You are looking to START racing, meaning no experience?

Hate to tell you this, but your chances of someone ponying up the cash for you to get started is very slim.

Depends on what series, but if its autocross and not something with an audience, really really slim.

Best way to get a small fortune in racing is to start with a large one.

I don't mean to come across as a troll, but you have to realize how out there it sounds.

The racing would in the "contemporary" class of the club which is a very unspecific class containing a wide range of cars which causes little competition between most of the cars.

There are usually 15-20 cars, but not very many spectators, sadly.

Discounts would work just fine, but only after I get the car (whether that's from other sponsors or saving up my own money)

I suppose, to restate my question, should I even bother asking for sponsorship without a car? Will it hurt my chances of getting that sponsor later on, if they decline the deal at first? Worst case scenario is they say "Nope", right? haha

Unless you already have experience as a racecar driver, along with a record of wins in other cars, I doubt anyone is going to sponsor you. They would be essentially paying you to learn how to drive, and there's no guarantee of return on their investment.

Honestly, I wouldn't even bother. You'll spend much more time trying to get discounts/etc than you could with a part time job to buy all the stuff yourself.

I'm with Yamaha. Look at it from a potential sponsor's perspective. What do you have to offer them? Little to no exposure on a non-existent car?

I vote get a job with flexible enough hours to allow you to race. Work your ass off, and sleep in the car at the track. It's worked before.

Thanks everyone. Thats what I was thinking, I just wanted to get some other opinions.

I am, of course, willing to go the job/work my as off route, its just going to take a long time to get to that point and I am looking for ways to speed it up.

Right now figure these kind of things out is all I can do.

You're going to have to offer something more concrete than "exposure". Companies want their sponsorship dollars to pay back.

What exactly are you going to DO for them and what is the payback on their investment?

What are you in college for?

I'd finish college and start a career before trying to become a club racer. If you must scratch the itch find a car you can co-drive. Most of the time you can buy a seat in someone else's ride.

Even the pros have issues finding sponsorship these days. Average Joe can hope for some basic parts discounts and if you're lucky, pocket change.

Take the time you would spend trying to extract money from people and work a 2nd job (School is your #1 first Job at the moment). Take $$$ from job #2 and save it until you can afford a car or to rent a seat and TAKE SOME LESSONS AND LISTEN TO YOUR INSTRUCTOR.

Your plan is completely unrealistic unless you are one hell of a fantastic salesman and you find some really inept business owners.

You my friend are a long way from even thinking of having some one pay you to drive a car. Sorry but that is the harsh truth.

If you were my kid I would say.

Step 1. Finish school get your degree etc. (this really is very important trust me here) Step 2. Get a job (if you do step one well you will get a good job that pays well) Step 3. Get some on track driving instruction by either using your car or rent a seat in a car.
Step 3a. Take your car and got autocrossing.

Something to note here you don't need a expensive car to get your feet wet. In fact at first you may actually spend more on safety gear than a car (this is a good thing by the way)

Many Many of the race cars I built over the years started as $500 cars. Several were pulled from junk yards. I got three MK1 Mr2's from a junk yard for $250 and pieced together one car that I then loaned to someone that used it for two years learning how to drive on track. It was born stock except for mods needed for safety. (belts, a roll bar etc.) Until you actually learn how to drive you don't need a high dollar prepared car. You need the cheapest thing you can get on track with and good safety gear because eventually you are going to bend it.

^In reply to dean1484: ^^ that is good advise

First - to the GRM community:

There's a whole "culture of sponsorship" that's been fostered by the action/extreme sports/DJ/hip-hop/energy drink/youtube world. Current crop street style skateboarders are all about "getting sponsored" - they shoot "sponsorship videos" and try to get them up the chain at manufacturers. The objective seems to be having the ability to say "I'm sponsored".

Second to the original poster:

I race a C sports racer with SCCA and a BMW M3 in NASA time trials. I actually do alright in my local series in the CSR. My local Hoosier dealer (Buy your tires from Paul and Sam at Radial Tire Company in Silver Spring MD!) gives me favorable pricing, and mounts/balances/flips tires for me for free.

That's it.

Everything else is on me. And it's ~expensive~ and incredibly time consuming. I've probably got 500 hours into rebuilding the car since last season. Granted, it's a total rebuild, but it takes all my time, and a cubic mega-sh1t-ton of money. And I have a full machine/fab/composites shop at home.

In SCCA/NASA club racing the overwhelming majority do it because the love it or are hopelessly addicted to it, and can afford it.

The guys doing the Skip Barber/F2000/F1600/Playboy MX5/Grand-AM and so forth, for the most part only get a ride if they can either pay for it, or have a sponsor who's looking for a write-off of revenue.

When I was racing motorcycles a hundred years ago, I thought it would be great to be sponsored. Eventually I became good enough that a local shop was willing to pay for my tires and entry fees.

Racing was now a job. I was working for my sponsor. I ~had~ to race, and where I may have taken it easy before on an off day, I now had the commitment to place as well as possible. The sponsor and his friends hung around my paddock spot all weekend and were a distraction at minimum.

My deal with the sponsor ran through 1/2 the season, and when I put the bike on the stand at the completion of the last event, the first thing I did after getting out of my sweaty leathers was to peel off the stickers.

So, work hard, save a lot (and it is impossible for a racer to save money) and bide your time 'til racing can take place with your EXTRA money. There's a huge number of ways to have fun driving without dropping $1,000 a weekend. Autocross, rallycross, time trials, HPDE, karting, ice racing, dirt oval and so on.

In reply to dean1484:

I agree with you 100%. School is my #1 priority. And to clarify, I never expect to make money, just have enough to keep the car going.

The plan is to start with as cheap a car as I can get and once I start making money (get through with college and get a real job) either upgrade it or buy another.

As I said Im just looking for a quick way onto the track, but I can wait if I have too.

I do wish sponsors were easy to get though :(

If your college happens to have an FSAE or Mini-Baja team, that will by far be the easiest way to get to spend time on a 'sponsored' race car.

For me, I have a few sponsors for the rallycross car - but I didn't go looking for any of them per se. I have long build threads with tens of thousands of views on 3 forums: of my 3 sponsors (2 competition parts manufacturers and an OEM parts vendor (also a BMW dealer)), 3 of them contacted me on forums asking if I'd be interested in running vinyl for them in exchange for discounts, etc. The one other one I was ordering parts from and asked him if he'd be interested in giving me a discount in exchange for running some vinyl for his company. To which he said yes, and has supported me in various ways since. This is the best option to save a few bucks.

None give me cash. None will give you cash either, most likely.

All give me discounts on stuff I'd buy anyhow, and are helpful in a few other ways (knowledge, finding parts, etc). Try for product sponsors...you still pay some for the stuff, but you pay less than you would otherwise.

All in all, the four sponsors combined have probably saved me $300-400 total on the car improvements (this all happened after I completed one well-documented season, by the way). And I have good quality vinyl that makes the car look good (IMO) and stand out....which could lead to more sponsors.

Sponsors want to make sure: 1. you use their product 2. you represent them well 3. you drive well - you don't have to WIN, you just have to be near the top 4. your car is SEEN, especially on the net (assuming you won't be on TV) 5. you have to be willing to have vinyl on your car, and a plan to make it looks good. nobody wants to sponsor a dumpy/ugly car. Rallycross is easier, since a decent-looking car looks GREAT compared to many cars out there, lol.

A detailed build and competition thread is the best place to start, and put it on forums that get a lot of traffic and visibility.

All that said.....it can't HURT to ask whomever you want to sponsor you. The worst they can say is "not interested," right?

and with all that said, a shameless sponsor plug photo :)

I have a friend who's a regular podium finisher and has taken home a class win in a rally series with LOTS of media exposure.

His sponsors are a drop in the bucket. The one that gives him the most benefits, gives him free tire mounting and wheel alignments. If you can find one that gives you free tires these days, that's about the best you could hope for.

In reply to Paragon:

One of the questions is - what is your goal here? Do you want to be a full time professional race car driver or something along those lines? In that case you might already be too old as the competition has been racing carts since they've been able to turn a wheel. It's also a very expensive endeavour, so you better have the ability to find six figure sums to pay your way into the pro ranks. For that you need sponsorship but you're not going to get that until you can prove that you're worth it, so you'll have to find the money to get to that point yourself.

If you simply want to race for fun, it's all going to come out of your budget and it's still not going to be cheap, but you're talking maybe five figures here and not six. At that level, you're looking at the aforementioned free tire mounting if you're lucky, but you're also not looking at 40h weeks keeping your sponsor happy and doing the race schools, testing and racing essentially during your spare time.

One of the first "sponsors" I had, was a local auto parts business. They allowed me to take parts with me, and if I needed to use them, I would pay them their cost. If you go this route, you MUST make sure you return the parts as soon as you can, and always give them an itemized "receipt" of what you're taking, and what you used.

Paragon wrote: In reply to dean1484: I agree with you 100%. School is my #1 priority. And to clarify, I never expect to make money, just have enough to keep the car going. The plan is to start with as cheap a car as I can get and once I start making money (get through with college and get a real job) either upgrade it or buy another. As I said I'm just looking for a quick way onto the track, but I can wait if I have too. I do wish sponsors were easy to get though :(

You need to look at this differently.

First off I have never lost a cent racing. I have spent money to do something I really really like. It is not different than spending money to go skiing or any other activity. You have to pay to play. You need to sit down and really really decide if it is something you want to do and you are going to have to make sacrifices to do it. I like others have had limited "sponsorship" in the past. but again it was in the form of free product and services and discounts on things. Bu this was only after we had put together a team and were running 6-10 races a year each were 4 to 24 hours in length. We all had spent many tens of thousands of dollars at that point were spending virtually every hour of free time working on the racing. We had a well oiled machine the only after 3 years of competing did we actually start finishing top5 and we got our first call win in the 4th year. Only after that did we actually get some one to help us out with out tire bill and give us Mobile 1 oil for the race cars. For the most part sponsorship is a recognition of your accomplishments. It is not something that enables you to accomplish your racing goals.

Something else. You need to be realistic about things. Ask the really tough questions. Like Why should anyone give you a dime when there are thousands of other people out there racing every weekend that have all the equipment and many many years of experience? For the same amount of money they offer you just to get you to the track they can offer to some one else and get there name on track for an entire season.

The simple fact is that YOU have to pay to play in this sport / hobby. But it is so worth it. I enjoyed the friends I made and the places I traveled to. Many events are 2 day parties that have a race going on in the middle of it. Racing is all inclusive from newborns to 100 year olds. All are welcome and all can and do have a great time. I also had fun working on the car. Staying up all night with your friends working on the car till you see the sun starting to rise only to then load the car on the trailer and go off to a 24 hour race. It is a lot of fun and you make good friends and great memories.

May I suggest that you spend some time at your local track. Meet people, volunteer to help with the event or to help a team. Even it if it is lugging tires around or working the BBQ (very important job by the way) This way you will learn what it is all about, you will make friends in the sport and who knows you may be offered a chance to drive some as well.