Dirt Nation

It’s all about the relationship

“Gidday, I’m Lance Leadfoot. You may know me from my Youtube videos ‘I fought the tree and the tree won’ and ‘Smokin’ – the story of an elderly dak-dak and its number one fan’. I’m here to offer you the chance to bestow several thousand dollars on my racing

obsession.”

That’s how it starts.

Then there’s the “as an added bonus, if you give me money I’ll go away.”

There aren’t many in the sport who have proper sponsors. Even fewer who actually look after their racer-sponsor relationship.

So we’re coming out of Covid and sponsors are no longer battering down the door looking for racers to throw dosh at.

How does someone get a sponsor, and how would that sponsor want to proceed?

The key to getting a sponsor is knowing your USP

– what makes you different from old mate Lance? How will you provide value to the sponsor? That offer – give me money and I’ll go away – may have worked back in the day, but now? Nope.

Two requisites most sponsors except: communication and promotion. Talk to the sponsor, invite them to come watch you race, ask them how you can help put their business or product out there with impact. That doesn’t mean driving into a tree, but hey, that also works if there’s a photographer present.

Note that the relationship

may be in or around your place of work. For example, in the past Castrol has provided product and other help through their reps and channelled support through local workshops. So if a race driver owned or had a good relationship with a local workshop it was a good way to open a dialogue with a premium brand.

Giti (and GT Radial Tyres) have been backing my own racing career since ages ago, through two unlimited-class trucks and various rebuilds that probably add up to four trucks. Even better, they’ve been on board as we took out class wins and titles and once – with Chang Junior Owen driving – the national championship outright title.

Covid has been hugely challenging but Giti have hung in there and we’re well on the way to getting busy again. All going well, we’ll be at the 2022 New Zealand Offroad Grand Prix. We may well get on TV. A long relationship is a good relationship – true in racing as it is in life.

Even better is when you race hard and have a massive profile and a sponsor walks up to you in the pits to ask if they can help. It does happen if you’re good. Example: Tony McCall had FPP ownerRoger McGarry literally seek him out to offer backing from FPP and ENZED as McCall’s current single-seater was being readied for its debut.. Fast teen Holly Russell had a similar experience with Rolf from Lucas Oil.

So what are you waiting for? Get a proposal together for the 2023 season and get out there! No, not you Lance Leadfoot, stand down.

Not everyone has sponsors walk into their workshop and ask to get on board. Multiple champion Tony McCall does.