Rick.Cook23@yahoo.com Posted June 17, 2019 Report Share Posted June 17, 2019 Back when I was young and foolish, I raced motorcycles. And sponsorship in motorcycle racing meant that the sponsor(s) paid the racers. Racers bought their products and raced with them, ran with sponsors decals, talked them up in post race interviews, thanked them online. Sponsors paid either cash, or parts, or credits toward parts, or product. As a racer, you had to win (or at least podium), have the correct sponsor decals, and then you got paid. TireRack is doing this somewhat this year - giving 10 sets of tires away at selected events. But could Champ work other contingency deals? Some examples: - the Rock Auto ChampCar B class: get a $100 gift certificate to the B class winner at every event (must have min of 5 cars in class) Could have different class sponsors for each class. - the Chase.com ChampCar Endurance Series: $500 for 1st overall, $250 for 2nd, $100 for 3rd (min of 30 cars entered) For the record, my team has never been even close to winning an overall - but you get the idea. - the Dunlop ChampCar C class sponsor: win C class on Dunlop tires while sporting Dunlop decals, and you win a set of Dunlop tires. Or credits toward buying Dunlop tires. (No, I don’t run Dunlop tires - but you get the idea.) Has ChampCar tried anything like this? Have the sponsors pay (cash, or parts, credits?) the racers. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
enginerd Posted June 17, 2019 Report Share Posted June 17, 2019 (edited) Did you have a lot of spectators at these motorcycle races? Also, because this is an amateur series, I’m against sponsor $$$ prizes to the teams. Sponsors should benefit the club as a whole, whether that is through random prize drawings (tire rack tires), or through discounts to all members, or though lower entry fees by funding the club itself. Edited June 17, 2019 by enginerd 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alchemy Autosport Posted June 17, 2019 Report Share Posted June 17, 2019 I agree. However, we now have more series "sponsors" that we are required to have on the car, which I have no issue with, except the races have only gotten more expensive and I have no clue what they are doing for us. i understand that the club needs to be a money making business and these sponsors help that cause, I just dont see any trickle down... 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LuckyKid Posted June 17, 2019 Report Share Posted June 17, 2019 Mazda is offering contingency. I think @Bill Strong was part of that!?!? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wvumtnbkr Posted June 17, 2019 Report Share Posted June 17, 2019 The sponsers allow us to race awesome tracks at low costs. I do wish they could throw the racers a bit of a bone once in awhile, but a lot of them do offer discounts. When the turnout sucks, they help carry the load. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ABR-Glen Posted June 17, 2019 Report Share Posted June 17, 2019 (edited) In the 2017 Financial report income from sponsors totaled $33,800, or between 1-2% of all income, so yes they *slightly* reduce your entry fees. Of course that doesn't count anything they give to the members directly or other intangibles like business relationships/connections etc. that have significant value. P.S. @Bill Strong seems like the BOD page is overdue for some updates? https://champcar.org/mainweb/board-of-directors/ Edited June 17, 2019 by ABR-Glen 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wvumtnbkr Posted June 18, 2019 Report Share Posted June 18, 2019 Damn right it needs updated. I know for a fact at least 1 ofnthe board members busted his ass to get new sponsers on board that are 3x more invested. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick.Cook23@yahoo.com Posted June 18, 2019 Author Report Share Posted June 18, 2019 5 hours ago, enginerd said: Did you have a lot of spectators at these motorcycle races? No, no spectators. Jus like ChampCar - friends and family of the racers were the only spectators. im jus asking what sponsors are doing for us racers? - entry fees are going up. How much more would they increase without sponsors? - allow Champ races at some world class tracks. That great if you can haul to those tracks. But in my case, I live 30min from CoTA but Champ doesn’t race there because of cost. Would we not be racing Daytona, Watkins Glen, etc. if we didn’t have TireRack onboard? not bashing sponsors here - at all. Heck, I was a TireRack Customer before they were onboard with Champ. And I like the idea that sponsors can help all of those, not jus the winners. something like: TireRack have a twice per year 25% off sale for all ChampCar racers? 4 tires for the price of 3. i don’t know what margins are for TireRack, but if they can make money on this, use tire reviews from racers on their site, have tech spots on the ChampCar YouTube channel, etc. benefit all racers, but use in return the publicity, reviews, and tech info to sell more tires to non-racers. maybe this works better with specific tire brands: Dunlop vs Nitto vs Falken vs... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrators E. Tyler Pedersen Posted June 18, 2019 Administrators Report Share Posted June 18, 2019 Our sponsors help with giving members discounts if utilized (Wilwood, Racing Radios, Lifeline, etc). We also pay for the sponsorship vinyl which totals up to be about $25k per year. We also don't increase the entry fees much based on what we are charged from the tracks. On average track expenses go up 3%-10% per year. We eat a lot of the costs internally. The sponsors to give quite a bit of product away or gift certificates at the races. Tire Rack doesn't do any discounts for members. They have been with the SCCA for a long time and do not give a membership to that organization. Tire Rack helps support us monetarily and also with free windshield banners. We have plenty of companies come to us that want to do contingency only. We like to see companies have equity into our series and not only want to give product away. We want sponsors who want to be involved in our series. If you look at most of our sponsors they have teams that race in this series so they are invested. I also know we have support on site at some tracks with Money Shift Racing, Discovery Parts and Racing Radios. Hopefully that answered some questions. Let me know if you have more. Thanks! 3 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hotchkis23 Posted June 18, 2019 Report Share Posted June 18, 2019 19 minutes ago, E. Tyler Pedersen said: Our sponsors help with giving members discounts if utilized (Wilwood, Racing Radios, Lifeline, etc). We also pay for the sponsorship vinyl which totals up to be about $25k per year. We also don't increase the entry fees much based on what we are charged from the tracks. On average track expenses go up 3%-10% per year. We eat a lot of the costs internally. The sponsors to give quite a bit of product away or gift certificates at the races. Tire Rack doesn't do any discounts for members. They have been with the SCCA for a long time and do not give a membership to that organization. Tire Rack helps support us monetarily and also with free windshield banners. We have plenty of companies come to us that want to do contingency only. We like to see companies have equity into our series and not only want to give product away. We want sponsors who want to be involved in our series. If you look at most of our sponsors they have teams that race in this series so they are invested. I also know we have support on site at some tracks with Money Shift Racing, Discovery Parts and Racing Radios. Hopefully that answered some questions. Let me know if you have more. Thanks! It was nice having the Money Shift Racing guys at the track this weekend. They had a fair amount of product on hand and were open to talking with anyone about how they can help out the members in the series! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IPF Racing Posted June 19, 2019 Report Share Posted June 19, 2019 On 6/18/2019 at 12:03 PM, hotchkis23 said: It was nice having the Money Shift Racing guys at the track this weekend. They had a fair amount of product on hand and were open to talking with anyone about how they can help out the members in the series! Agreed, I'd rather see more of this at the track than $$$ for winning. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DEE DEE Posted June 19, 2019 Report Share Posted June 19, 2019 On 6/17/2019 at 10:05 PM, Rick.Cook23@yahoo.com said: No, no spectators. Jus like ChampCar - friends and family of the racers were the only spectators. im jus asking what sponsors are doing for us racers? - entry fees are going up. How much more would they increase without sponsors? - allow Champ races at some world class tracks. That great if you can haul to those tracks. But in my case, I live 30min from CoTA but Champ doesn’t race there because of cost. Would we not be racing Daytona, Watkins Glen, etc. if we didn’t have TireRack onboard? not bashing sponsors here - at all. Heck, I was a TireRack Customer before they were onboard with Champ. And I like the idea that sponsors can help all of those, not jus the winners. something like: TireRack have a twice per year 25% off sale for all ChampCar racers? 4 tires for the price of 3. i don’t know what margins are for TireRack, but if they can make money on this, use tire reviews from racers on their site, have tech spots on the ChampCar YouTube channel, etc. benefit all racers, but use in return the publicity, reviews, and tech info to sell more tires to non-racers. maybe this works better with specific tire brands: Dunlop vs Nitto vs Falken vs... I think Tyler answered your question as to what ChampCar sponsors contribute to the well being of this series. I like to look at it like what can I do to help promote our sponsors. The sponsors of ChampCar have already done their part by taking this chance on this series. A sponsor is looking to generate a business result, a metric increase. You don't cash the sponsor check and do nothing. Our sponsors are looking for a quantifiable growth of their operation as is ChampCar. You were already a customer of TireRack that's perfect, your the customer they want. Now take it a step further and mention you are a ChampCar member the next time you make a purchase, tell them how happy you are with the service, knowledge, price, & delivery. Ask if they have a patch that you can display on your uniform. That's all it takes. It's a win for everyone 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jer Posted June 20, 2019 Report Share Posted June 20, 2019 (edited) Kudos to Tyler for bringing in The Tire Rack. unreal. They are giving away tires at a lot of races, and they do help us as an org expand our reach in other ways, such as offering a better broadcast to racing at new tracks where we don't get a large turnout. On a side note, we are upping the awards for results to the top five next season. If you have to go to tech, you should get something. We also are substantially increasing the awards for 1st-3rd in 2020. Finally, we are going to be banking some of the revenue. When that next recession hits, to have some money put away will help ensure the survival of the club through the downturn. Think of more sponsorship income as an insurance policy or a rainy day fund on the future economy. Edited June 20, 2019 by Jer 9 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard Posted June 21, 2019 Report Share Posted June 21, 2019 21 hours ago, Jer said: Finally, we are going to be banking some of the revenue. So I'm not getting my dozen donuts for the A Class win? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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