Question for the racecar guys about decals

Where do you get the decals made for your race cars? How did you hear about the place you got them from?

I own a sign shop and would like to branch out our vinyl section to race decals and numbers. I hadn't thought about it until a friend came to us for his grandsons late model. But now I think its something that would be a go direction to go. I'm not trying to solicit sales just some advice on where and how to get into this segment of the industry. I'd also would be interested in the prices you paid so I can gauge what the market is like and see what I would need to charge to make this profitable.

Thanks for your time.

Usually hear from another racer. Logo up one racer for free, making sure your logo and contact info is prominent. People will figure it out from there.

1) Advertise in your favorite magazine or on their website. I hear good things about Grassroots Motorsports.

2) I think Sachilles has the next best answer. Do a full vinyl wrap on a local car and make sure your company name is exceedingly visible. Let people taking pictures of that cool car help spread the word.

What kind of decals?

If it's a product logo, I would not ever pay for one to be put on my car- either it would have to be supplied by the organizer/sanctioning body due to rules, or they would have to pay for the space either by giving money or donating parts.

(aka- I don't understand why people freely advertise stuff)

Numbers... hm. That can be quite useful to supply.

Fully vinyl wrap instead of paint is very appealing (but unless you give me a big discount, no way your name would go on my car- when I pay big $$ for paint, the paint shop isn't getting advertising space, either).

Then, again, people seem to like to freely advtertise stuff they paid for on their car...

Series and personal sponsors provide the real meat of the decals so racers themselves do not pay for sexy graphics unless they are putting their own company on the car. Drivers just need number/class/safety and name lettering.

I went to 2 local sign companies to get 3 pairs of numbers, class designation and my name for the side and they both quoted me in excess of $100. Online, with shipping for $39. Seems like a tough market to make a buck in.

I like these guys, click Racing Package Deals.

The guy in the Mall can't do it for half their price.

http://www.squierdesign.com/

Dan

A good friend of mine, a supplier, that has a side business doing wraps and signage, mostly for racers. Good enough to allow his wife to quit her job to run the sign biz. He is a well known racer in Denver with a lot of contacts, so business was not hard to come by. Where are you? I will second the idea of advertising in the magazines. Easy people to work with, fair rates, and terrific demographics. They will help you from start to finish, will even provide classy artwork. (There is a charge for it) Talk to Joe Gearin.

I'm sure plenty of people around here wouldn't mind you wrapping their car for a small fee. Could benefit both of you. They get stone cash they need for their car in this rough economy and you get your name advertised on their car. You get to put it on your website too.

Yeah, I found a guy just through the grapevine of racers who had a vinyl cutter. All I needed were the basic number, class, etc. stickers.

Otherwise, I would have just called up the nearest sign shop to ask them. Don't know how to make yourself a go-to for car graphics.

sachilles - have one late model car done ( its the #41 Race to Volunteer car at VIR [correction: Old Dominion Raceway] in the 'Whelen' series) and a Bandalero type car So I've started that route.

Tom Heath - I've thought about an ad in GRM. Gotta see if our allotted advertising budget allows for it next year.

We don't do wraps here just cut vinyl. The upfront costs are to spendy for us to justify. We are a neon shop first and foremost. Also wraps are expensive for the customer. Coming back every week or so to have you beat up race car rewrapped would be cost prohibitive.

alfadriver - I was thinking numbers, trim, stripes, local merchants, driver's names type stuff. Not big name sponsors or parts manufacturers unless the owner really wanted it. You tend to run into copy write issues with those.

Giant Purple Snorklewacker - The internet guy is most likely some random guy in his garage with a plotter and no over head...... I'd love no overhead.

I'm also in the sign business, we run a full-service shop from cut vinyl to print to massive LED billboards. I looked into doing the same thing a couple years ago but quickly figured out that we can't touch the online guys because of our overhead. Sure, I can do amazing stuff with the printers we have, but very few of us racer will pay top dollar for pretty numbers. Lord knows I wouldn't!

I don't mean to be discouraging, btw, I hope you can find a way to make it work. I've always though it would be a cool way to go. I also second the idea of providing a graphics set to a well known local racer and branching from there.

914Driver wrote: I like these guys, click Racing Package Deals. The guy in the Mall can't do it for half their price. http://www.squierdesign.com/ Dan

I can match some of those prices with installation included.

ultraclyde wrote: I'm also in the sign business, we run a full-service shop from cut vinyl to print to massive LED billboards. I looked into doing the same thing a couple years ago but quickly figured out that we can't touch the online guys because of our overhead. Sure, I can do amazing stuff with the printers we have, but very few of us racer will pay top dollar for pretty numbers. Lord knows I wouldn't! I don't mean to be discouraging, btw, I hope you can find a way to make it work. I've always though it would be a cool way to go. I also second the idea of providing a graphics set to a well known local racer and branching from there.

Not discouraging at all. I was thinking some Oracal 341 would make for a good race car vinyl. Cheapish so when they come back every other week because it gets rubbed off it wont break the bank.

If you're up in the DC metro area and need neon I'll give you a GRM discount. Just look us up 'AA Neon LLC'

I've been lettering up a couple of race cars this week. I used to go to a local sign shop, but the costs drove me away. I have to admit that an inexpensive Roland vinyl cutter made all the difference for us. I justified it for other business reasons, but I'll bet it's pretty much paid for itself in race car stickers alone.

We cut the stickers showing our sponsors ourselves, because that way we can make it just the right size and integrate them well into the car liveries. The end result is a better looking car, which benefits our sponsors. For example, the car has V8 Roadsters across the front air dam. It's curved, of course, so we had to get just the right arc and dimensions. There's no way V8Roadsters could have provided that for us without a bunch of back and forth. Same with other sponsors - and when I made a mistake in spelling a name, I was able to quickly correct it on the car without having to pay for another run of vinyl from a local shop. If you can do that sort of work, you'll probably pick up some attention.

The cutter is not an option for most people, of course. To answer the original question, I'd start by contacting the local car clubs and let them know about your services. Maybe offer to do a run of club stickers for them, which will build you a bunch of good will and get you some attention. There's a big advantage to being local - you can turn around decals a lot faster than an online place. And we all know how racers plan ahead The idea of doing a package for a local high-visibility racer and making your name part of it is a popular one, I've seen a lot of sign shop names on race cars. So I'm guessing it works.