I'm currently trying to put together a package to race in the nationals next year and i'm seeking advise from fellow racers, specifically regards sponsorship.

The first step I made (getting a PR company involved) turned out to be the wrong tree to bark up, so i'm trying to do it myself - but i'm not very experienced in these matters.

What I want to know is what services do you guys offer to sponsors, and how much should be charged for them?

I'm trying to get a £20k or so (per season) package together so that I can compete competetively within 1-2 years. So every idea I come up with seems to end up hugely expensive when I try to split the potential income into £20k.

This is the site i've produced so far, with my price list, do any of you have any suggestions for expanding/revising this before I start using it to attract clients?

www.beckyrose.com

http://www.beckyrose.com/Services.html

becky is that u infront of ben cruttenden (33)? thats the PK festival at whilton mill and u said u had never been there!!!

the site looks good, i know someone who has done all sponsorship stuff so ill pass him your link.

brb lol

No it's not me, I havn't any photo's of me racing at the moment so I just google searched an image for now.

I did have some of me testing at Wild Tracks but I lost them in a hard disk format, the only other ones I had where one of me in a rental kart and an aweful one of me out of the kart when I won my first club championship - but thankfully I lost them both when I moved house What a relief... !

I will try to get somebody to take some piccies next time I race, although it's likely to be a while as I need to get a new kart - and they aren't cheap.

get a TKM
they are pretty cheap

Problem is, people dont wanna sponsor anything lower than GP2 (if GP2 even!)

my mate races in the world champs and he cant find sponsorship!

Thank you for your interest in my racing . TKM racing is more physical and you get less track time and higher running costs. Pro's are way more expensive to buy - but once you're setup they're much cheaper to run and a lot more rewarding - plus endurance racing suites my strengths . When you factor in all the other startup expenses, tow hook, trailer, marquee for instance, it's not as if the saving of a TKM is really that much.

My brother has most of the racing paraphanelia and he wants to focus on his sprint racing now, so I was thinking about this the other day and when I added up the odd expenses, a new generator + compressor, toolkits, even the small things like a first aid kit and a fire extinguisher etc. All those little things add up to around half a years salary for me (a laptop for the pits - which I can admittedly race without - is several hundred pounds).

To some extent I can go without a lot of things, but when my brother ends up racing on the same day then I have a problem.

He's pretty much already stated that I can't race his chasis, and his engines are contractually out of bounds for me unless he does an endurance race because of his tuning deal, which he's said he's no longer interested in, so i've got to start afresh :/. It would be nice to get the same chasis though for spares interchangeability, and also chassis knowledge, so I am planning to stick with the Pro. Besides I want to win Le Mans, and that means Pro Karts .

Its a shame u cant come to the LFS karting thing. There are alot of competative people goin, including alot of 2 strokers so it will be good The guy who runs whilton from day to day used to be a works driver for MS, and they won the le mans 24 hours in 2004 i think.
the MS kart guy's name is dan parker, heard of him?

good luck with everything tho!

20k seems like ALOT for a season in pro karts!

At national level 20k is a small budget - that's great value for money, the works teams shell out significantly more ! ... I dont expect I will actually raise very much though, but anything over £5k will at least get me back on the track at club level for now, less for subsequent seasons, but i've basically got startup costs again.

Firstly I have no real idea about karts so excuse me if I've made a wrong assumption that you're not intending to be come a professional racer and this sponsorship is to pay for the costs of your club racing as opposed to a source of income. Having looked at your site I'd say it looks like your being overambitious. The hospitality services may be a real winner but only if you can really offer (especially time) them the karting days they are looking for.

The LFS/sim racing services seem much more realistic and would probably tie into your job well as well.

Being realistic I think you should forget about agents etc., they really are going to have contacts and attempt to cater for sponsoring young hopefuls who they can tie into a long term deal and reap millions when they become the next Alonso.

My Dad has never had sponsorship but his mate has got sponsorship for his single seater. Approach local companies who may be intrested in sponsoring your car/kart. I'd stick away from offering any services away from the race meetings I suppose a kart is easier to go and dump at a stand some where but with a car you don't want to have to send it away when there's only limited time to work on it and all the practical issues it presents. The only time the corporate hospitallity ever reached the circuit was one Silverstone meeting when they sponsored the race and were given a box over the pits and stickers on all the cars. Also meant he didn't have to do anything other than go and speak to the guest a few times and they weren't all over the place and in the way.

I had a quick look and I couldn't see what you were offering a company in terms of wanting to sponsor you. You need to tell them about the coverage, articles in mags, spots on the radio, anything that will actively promote thier brand. They need to know who and how many people thier branding will reach so they know if it is a worthwhile venture. Is there local TV coverage of your events? Is there coverage in trade mags? How many people will attend the 24hr kart race?
If a company knows that they are buying sponsor ship on a Kart this is likely to win a chapionship that noone but the people in attendance will ever see then why would they sponsor you? However if they know that it will reach an estimated audience of 20000 folk in europe on the Motorsport channel then they might be more interested. Think not what you can do for them but what they can get out of you.

Good luck and let us know how you get on (so the rest of us can fleece some company into putting up some opposition for you )

On one hand I think it is excellent that you mention and promote virtual racing alonside real racing, as this hobby of ours also needs promoting, so that one day it may become a sport in it's own right, and shake off it's 'video game' image.

On the other hand, the video game stigma is still there to the uninitiated, and I worry that having your sim racing credentials and the virtual racing info sitting so closely alongside the real racing achievements could trivialise what you hope to achieve, and may turn some sponsers off. This is just a guess though, I know nothing about sponsership. I don't mean to be pessimistic, and I certainly do not wish to dampen your spirits.

I hope you get what you are looking for. Good luck Becky

Quote from dontsimon :

On the other hand, the video game stigma is still there to the uninitiated, and I worry that having your sim racing credentials and the virtual racing info sitting so closely alongside the real racing achievements could trivialise what you hope to achieve, and may turn some sponsers off.

Personally I don't think you will be taken seriously by any sponsors if you include the LFS. I mean.. 90% of the people you will approach I'm sure will have no clue about 'sim racing' and just assume you like to play around with video games often. I'm not just saying this to be a dick, but because I've needed sponsor money at times to keep racing, and it was really harder then I thought to just convince someone to give you money. The best way to approach a business is to talk to the person face to face, and have a portfolio ready. Basically you would want to include racing schedule for the year, approximate amount of yearly expenses, a little history about yourself, accomplishments n stuff, and also you need pictures. Show them that this isn't like.. amusement park rental go karts lol. They're obviously gonna want to know how their company could benifit from the advertising. Saying which tracks you would be going to. Sponsors like to see recognizable names like Daytona.. Charlotte.. Road America etc. So if you are planning on racing different locations, maybe inside a famous car track, then say it. (Le Mans was a good example) So good luck and hopefully you can get back to racing soon.

Thank you all, there's some real quality advice here and i'm going to take as much onboard as I can and ammend things, the main thing for now is getting some photo's of me in the kart. You've all been a real genuine help.

I think on the LFS issue, well i've tried to quite subtely big it up, I think it is useful as a marketting tool but perhaps I should downplay it a bit and give it less column inches on the race profile page.

Well certainly I'd make the photo on your profile of you racing your kart rather than sim racing. Also I think the wins: lost count is rather off putting and makes a rather arrogant impression.

Quote from ajp71 :

Well certainly I'd make the photo on your profile of you racing your kart rather than sim racing. Also I think the wins: lost count is rather off putting and makes a rather arrogant impression.

First thing I noticed too.

Yup, you should definitely add some real photos of you and not make LFS the main picture. It's nice that you advertise LFS, but it should not be rated "equal" to the real racing you want to do.

Personally, and that might just be me, when I first looked at the site only one thing really got my attention: everything is written as someone describes you, not you describing yourself. It's "Becky does this, Becky does that". I don't say that's bad at all, I just looked at your site expecting you to write about yourself

Besides that, you can also state that you'll add bought logos to your LFS skin, should they provide it in a usable format (and maybe say that LFS has sold about 30000 copies and has about 1000 active players per day, just to provide a bit extra incentive to buy... errr sponsor you).


E: and get rid of that "lost count"

I asked if AH Motors in Guildford wanted to sponsor me for some sprint events. Only some money off some work he'd done for me. I say "Fancy adding a nice AH Motors sticker to the Golf for this year Ashley?". The reply, "What, on the bottom, in prime position? lol"

Good luck Becky. Hope you have some luck. I can't even afford to enter the sprint chamionship this year and that really is supposed to be cheap.

Think I need to find a heavily restricted formula.

Quote :

I think the wins: lost count is rather off putting and makes a rather arrogant impression.

That's a fair comment. I wish I knew how many races I had won, it's not actually that many but i've never really kept tabs on it. I think not saying race wins suggests I havn't won any at all as you kind of expect it to be there. I suppose I could just make up a more or less correct value, probably about 15 or so.

Quote :

everything is written as someone describes you, not you describing yourself. It's "Becky does this, Becky does that".

I normally steer well clear of 3rd person, I hate it when i'm watching the news and some victim or somekind says, "You just feel parallised with fear" or something, and I think no 'YOU feel parallised with fear, I might just wet myself'...

However when I wrote the page I tried to write it a bit like a race programme - like the magazines you get before the F1 season starts. Perhaps that was wrong? Should I change it to first person?

I disagree. Writing it in the third person gives the impression that your 'corner' includes more than just you, that maybe you have a team helping to promote you. Writing it in a manner of "I have done this . . . I have achieved that . . . " reads as amateurish in my opinion, almost like a student trying to get their first job.

Look at most professional racing driver's sites and you'll see that the site is written about them, not by them. Just as a matter of reference, this is one I was looking at this week.

http://www.edoardomortara.com/

You may not be at that status yet, but that is just the point, it's vitally important to present yourself as professional right from the start. Create a serious, proffesional image and you will be accepted as such.

i haven't read all the posts above but how do u justify £20k to race Pro Karts!? LOL!!
What 2 pro kart championships did u win? what year?

£20k is easily spent in national level competition. That budget is what the entry level teams use per season according to the organising body, I hope to run on the heels of the works team with it, it's excellent value for money. In club racing that's the kind of budget of the top teams I compete against.

Not a chance would it cost 20k to run at the front.
You could race in Formula A in Super 1 for that sort of money... with a semi works team!

Formula A is sprint though isn't it?

If you want to confirm what it costs to run a Pro Kart team for a season this is the series organisers for the official MSA National Pro Kart Endurance Champioship. http://www.paulbowlerpromotions.co.uk/

That is the series I would like to race, but yes £20k is an aweful lot of money. I may have to settle for more club racing which means I can run with a lot less money but some teams still spend that kind of cash a year anyway.

EDIT: When I was looking at getting works backing in my TKM days the manufacturers basically said if your yearly budget isn't £40k or more then we're not even going to look at you. That was 10 years ago. The theory being if you dont have the money you aren't going all the way, I guess.

is that 25k per driver or per team?

how many races a season?

Seeing as your not going to ever become a professional racing driver there are plenty of other choices than karts for £25k a season. Many forms of car club racing could be run competetively (ie. front running) for that much and single seaters (though not front running) could also be a possiblity. I don't really see you getting much sponsorship from any form of club racing though and don't forget other drivers who have picked up sponsorship in a professional series will often not have been sponsored because of the exposure avaliable at karting levels but because of the possibility of tieing them into a long contract when they become stars.

£20k or so for an entry level team. If I get £10k i'll try to find another driver with £10k or so, if I get £20k i'll get a good driver to back me up. Taking a paying driver does not guarantee quality.

Here's an idea of cost: Tyres are about £115 a set, you need two sets for most races, and a base stock of slicks and wets to allow for weather and punctures. There's 10 rounds, that's £2300 for the slicks plus whatever tyres are used in testing. Old tyres are ok to a point, but probably 1 fresh set each track will be used in getting setups, add in a half a dozen wet sets for the season (dont forget test days in the wet usually write off a fresh set, and wets are more expensive) and you get roughly £5000 on tyres for 1 year.

Then there's travel, camping/BB, test days, entrance fees, fuel, spare parts (several grand), engine tuning (several grand), and lets not forget I have startup costs this year.