Over the years I have gone through countless driver
sponsorship competitions, driver development programs, talent searches, and car
Owner ride offers and my girls have done a lot in their careers as a result of
these racer support initiatives. Kaley
was the youngest female driver inducted into the Women in the Winner’s Circle
Foundation and Amber was a finalist out of Texas for the Red Bull Driver
Search. Unfortunately for Amber the
Drive 4 Diversity had just been implemented and I was not aware of the program
at the time and she would have been an ideal candidate for it (female and
Hispanic – NASCAR had been driving hard for Hispanic market expansion for
years….) In addition to being unaware, I
also made some mistakes along the way on programs that I completely had full
knowledge and understanding of the requirements and application
procedures. I missed an important
deadline for Kaley after she had been sought out by NASCAR’s Marketing Director
only to have the program taken over by a 3rd party who did not have
that history or background knowledge of her race career. Then when I did make the deadline the
following year, my video was complete garbage.
I didn’t know how to splice together the driver introduction to the
action footage – heck, I wasn’t one of those moms who took video and relied on
the internet to find racing footage that she was in. I do get a pass on that since I was always
busy running the race program and couldn’t video for much of her racing career
because she raced at KAM. I uploaded
what I thought was a decent video submission – her driver intro she filmed was
spot on and couldn’t have been more perfect – and I had found several different
videos that she was clearly in the frame, and what I thought was my finished
project was uploaded to YouTube as required.
I didn’t know until days later that my video was just her driver intro
but displayed sideways and stretched out of proportion because we used an
iPhone (older version). In other words,
my application was not complete and she was taken out of consideration. Devastating to say the least. When you work so hard and try for so long
it’s easy to throw in the towel because the stress of doing it all over again
from scratch is just too much to bear.
That’s what happened to Kaley.
She refused to let me do the process over again the next year because of
how stressed it had made me and the strain on the entire family created some
very negative moments and turned our lives upside down. Kaley
had an amazing karting career and it’s outlined on her website at www.kaleyengstrom.com.
So, I write blog posts to give helpful advice on social
media and talk to race parents about Driver Marketing to help them avoid my
mistakes and the pitfalls of race marketing and sponsorship, and to enhance your
race program which results in a better position for your driver and for your
drivers potential success.
How important it is to keep accurate driver race results and
records and to take and post videos to a YouTube Channel? Extremely Important!
Don’t just post random clips of footage in a stop and go rhythm of how you
filmed it. If you have a GoPro on you
kart for on track driver perspective view, don’t post the entire thing – you
will have a lot of standing still time in the shoot before the driver takes the
track, pace laps as the field gets in line until the green flag and going to
the scales to weigh with the drive back to the pits after the checkered flag. That’s too much non-essential racing and is
quite boring for the viewer. You must
get and learn a good video editing software.
And believe me there is a learning curve and trial and error when you
first get started. But it’s a skill set
that all race parents must get if you want to get your driver to a higher level
in motorsports.
Okay, enough of my soapbox.
Following is a list of some companies that offer Sponsorship, driver
development searches, contingency programs and racing contests that I am aware
of. If you know of any that I missed,
please let me know so I can add them to the list.
Even if your child is currently too young to enter, make
plans now and put it on your calendar.
The prep work that you do now will only help you succeed in creating an
award-winning application that will get selection committee members attention
or profile votes on Branded websites in the future. There doesn’t seem to be as many
opportunities today as when Kaley was younger, but that could change and you
want to be ready to apply for as many of them as you can. My rule of thumb: If you qualify, you should be entering.
This first one has been around for a number of years and
seems to keep gaining momentum so I think it will be around for a while.
Champion Spark Plug – They host
an annual “Search for a Champion” contest.
By far my favorite motorsports related contest! As evident by past winners, this is anyone’s
contest to win and being creative, outgoing and telling a compelling story
about your racing and why you should get a sponsorship from them are the key
elements to winning. The minimum age is
13, but you can be younger with parental approval. You must race equipment that can use Champion
Spark Plugs and fit into a predetermined category – karts is acceptable - (no
proof that you do is required).
The Promotion begins the first of November and ends mid to
late March with the winners being announced sometime in April. Fist
you fill out an online form and sign up on their website for a user
account. An essay is required, no more
than 300 words, and must include a short bio of the driver and the reason why
you think Champion should give you a sponsorship. Then the big component – filming a 2-minute
video presentation. Be sure to check out
the previous year’s winners and finalists on YouTube – just search “Search for
a Champion” and a huge list of videos will pull up for you to choose from.
You’ll be amazed at the how creative and enthusiastic the drivers are, but it
will give you a good starting point from which to create your video. Be sure to write out a sketch and the dialog
so you convey a good message that comes across professional.
The videos are uploaded onto their website for Public
Voting. During this period, you want to
promote and try to get as many votes as possible. The really good videos will go viral in a
sense and the votes will just take off.
You can do it! This is why I
stress that every race team learn how to film and properly edit a video. Video submissions are an application
requirement for most of the contests and driver development applications that
I’ve come across over the years. The video
must depict your racing with your race equipment and a photo is also required
for the online profile that is created.
After the final voting period, the public voting will determine the 25
finalists in each category. Votes
however, are not determinative of selection as a Finalist.
At the conclusion of the Finalist Public Voting Period, each
Contest Entry will be judged against the other Contest Entries in its Category
by a Sponsor-selected panel of judges (“Judges”) based on the following
criteria (“Judging Criteria”):
Inspirational quality - 34%
Best depiction of a Champion - 33%
Number of votes from the public - 33%
For complete details and rules visit this link: http://sfac.championautoparts.com/on-the-track/.
Not too many karters use this next Brand, but it’s a simple
to enter and qualify process to enter.
Red Line Synthetic Oil – Has on
“open enrollment” starting the first of September where they take Sponsorship
requests via their website using an online driver application. The key is performance and to use their
product in your racing program. (Are you
keeping accurate records of race results? Use the Driver Notebook – a copy is
under Forms on the website or under Files on Executive Speed Marketing group
page on Facebook.) Their requirements go
on to say, “Red Line relies on teams to build a positive social
media presence and represent themselves with good sportsmanship and citizenship
in their communities.” So make sure that
your website and Social Media channels are up-to-date and that all your race
recaps and posts are positive and upbeat telling a good story about your race
team. Click here for more information
and to access their Sponsorship page: https://www.redlineoil.com/sponsorship.aspx.
Red Line also offers a Contingency Program. Like most Contingency programs, they require
you to run their product and place in the top of the class per their website:
“Run our stuff, finish up near the top (or win a random drawing) and you’ll
have a great chance of getting prizes redeemable at REDLINEOIL.COM for motor
oil, gear oil, additives, grease and more. We like to reward good performance,
but also like to say “thank you” to the guys and gals who show us support and
don’t hit those top 3 or 5 spots.”
You are required to run an 8-inch sticker graphic of their logo and purchase
$75 worth of their product in the 6 months before the event or series starts
that you plan to run. Email them at contingency@redlineoil.com to see if
you qualify.
Valvoline:
According to their website: “Team Valvoline is on a mission to lead the
evolution of racing by partnering with racers, engineers, builders, auto
professionals and students.”
I’m going to highlight this next racer support program
because I love the concept and saw it in action first hand when Kaley race her
Sprint car at the Knoxville Nationals a few years ago. The program was explained to me by the ladies
selling the raffle tickets and this is what I found online about the program:
AlpineStars – Most racers know the brand –
they outfit NASCAR drivers with their safety gear. They are high dollar, high quality race apparel. They
Take applications (Race Resumes) once a year in November by snail mail
only. Send Race Resume to Alpine Star,
Racing Services, 2780 W. 237th St., Torrance, CA 90505.
Knoxville Raceway - https://www.knoxvilleraceway.com/Pages/Driver-Support
Not that it will help us here at KAM, but I love the idea and concept they have
and how they give back to the drivers.
I’d love to put a fundraising effort into something like this on a
bigger scale than what we offer by way of our awards program. It’s called The Knoxville Racing Charitable
Organization (KRCO) and it’s a non-profit organization that was created
approximately 18 years ago by several sprint car drivers’ wives in order to
provide additional safety equipment (for the cars and drivers) and additional
insurance for those that race weekly at Knoxville and are in the Knoxville
Raceway Points. They sell the 50/50
tickets and use the proceeds to go toward the driver fund. Of course, at a track that size and fan
popularity, the ticket sales are very high with a large payout every race
night.
NASCAR’s Drive 4 Diversity
- If you are a female or minority driver
then listen up! This could be your
golden ticket to reach the highest level of motorsports and follow in the
footsteps of Kyle Larson. Of course, all
the tips and advice I give really count when it comes to the application
process for this program. You must
create a Video for your submission that has a driver introduction then a
sampling of racing from different venues and/or different styles of racing (ie:
Outlaw karting, Micro, Midget, Wing vs Non-Wing, etc.) They want to get an overall picture of your
driving ability in a short video so video quality is a must. It must also back up your race resume, which
must be detailed but very accurate. They
will be fact-checking via a special selection committee panel.
The online application wants you to list your recent racing
activity and requires total car count in class, starting position, ending
position to name a few specifics.
NASCAR handed over the management of the program a number of years ago
to Rev Racing. They’ve made changes to
the process over the years and now the application submission procedure is open
year-round but the deadline for that current year’s Combine is sometime in
September. The online application and requirements
can be found here: http://revracing.net/combine-application/.
They also want a good headshot and one on track shot of
driver and car. The minimum age to apply
is 15.
Here’s another Manufacturer racer support program.
Simpson Racing – offers Sponsorships by
way of product discounts, they do not provide monetary sponsorships. You submit your application by mail sending
which includes a detailed Race Resume that lists your background, race history
and any special accomplishments both on and off the track. They also want a copy of your Race
Schedule. Applications are accepted
between October 1st through January 31st for the upcoming
race season. For more information and
the address to use click this link: http://simpsonraceproducts.com/sponsorships-contingency.
There are not as many Driver Development programs as their
used to be, and that’s unfortunate. This next one doesn’t really fall into that
category but resembles a development based program, in fact they call it
“Athlete Development” in their description of the program. It’s a Brand that any racer would die to
partner with and back their race team, and as if they weren’t popular enough
they are the new name behind Motorsports highest level of professional racing.
Monster Energy – a common household name
in Motorsports having made huge contributions to the sport and drivers over the
years has a special driver, or “Athlete”, development support program called
Monster Army. The age requirements are
13 to 21 and they provide a varying level of support based on sport and what
level the driver is at. (ie: Performance level) Their website promises that “Athletes
from all over the world are evaluated and invited into the program to represent
the Monster Energy brand.” All you do is
fill out an online “Profile” and submit at least 3 pictures. For more information and to get started visit
this link here: http://www.monsterarmy.com/about/. The profile must be active with photos,
videos and results posted before being considered in the application search
process.
Well that’s all I know that’s available to the Outlaw Dirt
Karters. There are more available to
asphalt flat karts because there is a bigger market and more manufacturers that
service that market. Also, when your
driver moves up to the Sprint Car level their Contingency programs will be more
common place as most sanctioned race series’ offers a program as part of the
membership perk. You just have to run
the Sponsor’s stickers on specified locations of your race car and usually
finish in the top 3.
Again, if I missed a program that is out there please let me
know. I’d love to see this list grow in
an effort to help racers and promote the sport of karting. We need to get the Outlaw Kart community to
ban together in a petition writing campaign to get more manufacturers to offer
more racer support to our sanction of the sport. We use their products in our race programs
and karting is, after all, the way most professional race car drivers got their
starts in Motorsports. Without karting
the race industry would suffer a huge hit because drivers would have no place
to learn the sport nor lay a solid foundation from which to launch a racing
career from.
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