How do they do it?

PTRACER · 25 Jan 2009, 22:12 (Ref:2379193)

Been looking at the budget of national Formula Ford, national Formula Renault, that sort of thing... The budget for FFord per season is supposedly about £45,000 and for F.Renault, anywhere between £100,000 and £130,000.

How the hell do people raise that sort of money? Even for a millionaire, £100,000 for a junior formula is a huge amount of money. Does money all come from sponsorship? Is the driver the one who is expected to pay all of that, or at least raise those funds?

Is it possible to raise enough funds by sponsorship alone to fund a whole season or do you still need a rich daddy to foot most of the bill?

Does EVERY driver have to pay these huge amounts of money?

And what about all these teams offering seats in their car for a season for a price? What's the catch, if there is one, other than the fact you're paying them and they're making a big profit out of you?

What are you actually paying for anyway, the operation of the entire team for the entire season?

minifox · 26 Jan 2009, 01:07 (Ref:2379292)

i think your prices are also alot lower than the real world. i know jamun ask for anywhere over 100k for a season in ff. and manor want about 150-200 for fr.
Sponsors are only there if the drivers daddy has payed for him to win kart championships.
and if you cant find the sponsorship(now being the time nobody can) then daddy has to raise the funds or you dont go racing.
the harsh reality is the further up the formula you go the less natural talent is there. seat time will always improve a drivers times. and money pays for seat time.

If you pay a team for a year you get your car loaned to you. mechanics. your share of awning space. sometimes they include tyres and race fees etc in the price. but very rarely.

wheadon · 26 Jan 2009, 06:21 (Ref:2379366)

Remember race teams have to pay for workshop's (inc Bills, rates etc) Mechanincs wages, Transportation maintenence, Hotels (if they don't have space et the track) Spare parts and repair bills etc.

I won't name anybody here but when I worked for a professional renault team, we had a driver who was about 12mph down on our other driver along the revets straight at Snett. He said it was the engine, we showed him it was because he wasn't carry enough speed out of the previous corner. He went in the huff so his father got the cheque book out and bought a new engine from Renault!!

Silly eh!

GORDON STREETER · 26 Jan 2009, 08:50 (Ref:2379437)

PTRACER. I have been involved in motorsport in one way or the other since the 60s, and in all that time I personally haven't known any "one driver" that has got anywhere by his natural ability without either having a parent that grows money trees or that has gone broke trying. (even Mansell remortgaged his house) !
Obviously over the years there has been a few but I bet you could almost count them on one hand.
I tried a FF out in the early days and OK I did the times with no problem, when I was told how much it cost for a season that was the end of that !!

wheadon · 26 Jan 2009, 09:16 (Ref:2379455)

Quote:

even Mansell remortgaged his house!

and he did it all with a broken back too!

At the end of the day, unless you totally throw money at it yourself (family money even) or you do a mansell and sell your possessions to fund it then there is little chance of getting to the top.

Oliver Turvey has done wonders to get to where he is. He's like a young perry mccarthy who's been noticed! He's now got the backing and is going to do well in World series this year, but I know he and his family struggled at the start. I raced against him in karts at rowrah a long time ago and the lad's done good.

I'm running a formula vee for my best mate this year. We're obviously doing it on a show string. No daddy's money or anything. He works monday to saturday spannering wagons to get his money to race. We only got thecar by chance so if we hadn't seen it then he would of just spent his money on more classic saabs! But we've taken the plunge which is porbably a bit strange in the current climate!

PS: Gordon, just watched an in car of you at spa on classic fords web site. Impressive!

Eric Falce · 26 Jan 2009, 09:38 (Ref:2379468)

Quote:

Originally Posted by wheadon

PS: Gordon, just watched an in car of you at spa on classic fords web site. Impressive!

Try following him there as I did,even more impressive

But the old buggers retired now so will have to get someone else to follow to learn from!

wheadon · 26 Jan 2009, 09:48 (Ref:2379473)

Quote:

Try following him there as I did,even more impressive
But the old buggers retired now so will have to get someone else to follow to learn from!

Bet he was hard to follow. I'd just love to get some laps in there!

PTRACER · 26 Jan 2009, 10:16 (Ref:2379480)

Quote:

Originally Posted by minifox

If you pay a team for a year you get your car loaned to you. mechanics. your share of awning space. sometimes they include tyres and race fees etc in the price. but very rarely.

So essentially the team doesn't make any effort at all to find enough sponsorship to run a driver, it's down to the driver to do that himself?

Al Weyman · 26 Jan 2009, 10:22 (Ref:2379485)

I would say thats about right PT, I gave up seeking sponsorship years ago and fund it now from my own business but unless things pick up as I am sitting here without a job in the house today then I will not be out until things improve.

Al Weyman · 26 Jan 2009, 11:11 (Ref:2379515)

Another thing, its even hard trying to secure title sponsorship for club racing in today's climate and you would be surprised just how cheap it is and would not cover one round in FF or Renault at the prices being quoted above and for that you have your stickers on every car in the event for the whole year plus appear in every program printed (any one interested in a title sponsorship deal please email me :-)).

PTRACER · 26 Jan 2009, 11:24 (Ref:2379519)

Title sponsorship in the way of...The CADart Classic Saloon Car Championship or something like that?

I'd have imagined getting sponsorship in a proper national series is easier than in a club series, because it gets more exposure. F.Renault is broadcast on the TV, you'll find pictures of it printed in Autosport and on various websites...The only problem is, you need ridiculous amounts of money, hence you need to go to MASSIVE corporations that want to advertise themselves on the TV. I figured if anyone was going to get a sponsorship deal in the current financial climate, the best place to look would be at businesses that are not currently suffering, such as oil companies and maybe large supermarket chains.

wheadon · 26 Jan 2009, 11:40 (Ref:2379524)

Quote:

So essentially the team doesn't make any effort at all to find enough sponsorship to run a driver, it's down to the driver to do that himself?

Basically yeah. That's why drivers have managers/agents and why teams seem to have a few different drivers each year!

The racing team I worked for we're lucky as they had a large haulage firm sponsor them, providing 2 trailer units with living areas and fantastic workshop/storage in them, 2 magnum tractor units and a fully kitted out workshop/office with a machine room with lathes, drills etc, showers, nice staff room, loads of upstairs storage and 6 bays for the cars with benches, compressor lines etc. It was amazing. This helped the team lower the price for the driver by quite a bit.

I remeber trudging around industrial estates going into every company we could find, with full glossy printed folders with all the info for the funcup, tv listings, viewing figures, hospitality packages and everything you could think of and people were saying no thanks. We even went as far as using R-factor to do mock-ups of the car with all the different companies liveries on! We had computer presentations and everthing. We got not one penny!

If you look though, large supermarket chains really don't do much sponsorship!. Tesco's do some advertising for their fuel with some race/rally championships and I remember Wall-mart being on a champ car a few years ago. I used to drive for asda before coming to uni this year and me and my friends were trying to get some money together for the funcup and ASDA just said "NO, we don't do dangerous sports"! And that's it. If you've read Perry Mccarthy's book "Flat out Flat broke" there is a page where he's talking about sponsorship and he says some companies just won't do motor racing. The best line is "you could say you've found elvis and he's willing to skydive out of a plane at half time of the superbowl wearing your companies logo on a t-shirt and all for £50 and they would say oh we don't do dangerous sport"!

**touringlegend** · 26 Jan 2009, 11:47 (Ref:2379529)

Dangerous sport? Can't remember where but I've seen a list of dangerous sports and motor racing isn't at the top. Something daft like football I think!

Al Weyman · 26 Jan 2009, 12:44 (Ref:2379564)

Quote:

Originally Posted by PTRACER

Title sponsorship in the way of...The CADart Classic Saloon Car Championship or something like that?

PT you just don't know how near the truth that nearly was as I was going to stand in if no one else does!

By the way all the clubs series/chamionships are national.

Al Weyman · 26 Jan 2009, 12:49 (Ref:2379568)

Horse riding (my daughter cracked her skull a few years back falling off one) Rugby, I still have permenant injuries going back to the early 70's, Jogging (how many heart attacks) many more dangerous, the worst I have been hurt is a bit of whiplash and a badly bruised thumb, oh and a gash across my eye when my son in law dropped the winch handle on me when I was strapping the car to the old trailer I used to use!

BTW was'nt there 3 poor guys lost hill climbing only this weekend.

RF_Racer · 26 Jan 2009, 13:14 (Ref:2379586)

There is a massive thread on sponsorship asking the same question.. a search will find it

RF_Racer · 26 Jan 2009, 13:25 (Ref:2379595)

I gave up too! I the BRDC series at silverstone in 1998, but then I was thinking of moving to formula ford. I could not get enough money to fund it, over 100k was needed. I decided that was that...

I am in a position where today I can spend around 10-15k per season, so club racing is what I like to do. I did a season in club FF series. I will do so for another year. The plan is to buy an F3 car and do Club F3 or Mono.

F3 cars are still awesome to drive, so what if its just a club series, the fun you can get out it makes it all worth the while.

Unless you have some serious backing behind you, most you can hope for is Club F3 which normal people can do.

Al Weyman · 26 Jan 2009, 13:48 (Ref:2379607)

I have an idea for sponsorship, write a book on how to get it and charge some astronomic fee for it say £100 and race off the proceeds, oh no it been done before that won't work. :-(

wheadon · 26 Jan 2009, 14:10 (Ref:2379626)

Well, you need serious backing to do the anything now.

That's why I've given up on driving till I finish uni and I'm running my team with my mate craig to do the Formula Vee championship. We bought the car for less than what it would cost to do 1 funcup round.

I have worked with a lot of drivers in the past and I have only ever worked with 2 drivers who got there without their family's/sponsors money.
Needless to say they only did 2 races each. One was Rob Jenkinson who finally came good in Caterhams a few years later! Bloody good driver

midgetman · 26 Jan 2009, 14:20 (Ref:2379630)

I've never worked out how the great God of TV coverage benefits 99% of sponsors......you barely see the cars, the programmes are shown on minority channels in the middle of the night and the only watchers are petrolheads who wouldn't know a supermarket if they saw one.....and at-track advertising is just the same.

I get loads of people trying to sell me sponsorship on their cars "cos it's on Motors TV and will be seen around the world". Forget it. "It'll be seen by loads of other competitiors and they'll all come and buy from you". Forget it again.

Go on then, how many sponsors at the back end of the Porsche Cup can you name? How many sponsors in the race after yours at your last race meeting can you name?

Sponsorship is only part of an integrated marketing campaign, working both above and below the line and backed up by many other promotions and activities. Sponsorship on its own is useless.

So to go back to PT_Racer's original question, the top sponsors come from very, very good marketing agencies who package the on-car advertising as part of a hugely expensive awareness campaign, backed up by using the cars away from the circuit, in print and on direct marketing campaigns. You find these people by being very good at the driving side and teaming up with good sports marketing agency.

The lesser sponsors come from benefactors/friends/families. You find these by being very good at networking, you don't have to drive that well as some kind of competence will come with practice.

</marketing geek><Sorry>

RF_Racer · 26 Jan 2009, 15:38 (Ref:2379667)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Al Weyman

I have an idea for sponsorship, write a book on how to get it and charge some astronomic fee for it say £100 and race off the proceeds, oh no it been done before that won't work. :-(

lol yes Guy Edwards..

PTRACER · 26 Jan 2009, 16:03 (Ref:2379678)

Quote:

Originally Posted by wheadon

That's why I've given up on driving till I finish uni and I'm running my team with my mate craig to do the Formula Vee championship. We bought the car for less than what it would cost to do 1 funcup round.

Funcup is a rip-off for what it is, IMO. The cars aren't exactly quick or difficult to drive, although it's not exactly a series filled with youngsters.

I want to race, but if I'm going to race, I'm going to spend the money on something worth spending my money on. If you are desperate to race, you can race an Austin Montego in a novice saloon car series if you want to. In the last few days, I've become a little sour with the idea of working the hours that I do, in order to race a 17 year old Formula Ford cobbled together from a load of spare parts at the odd race throughout the year. That doesn't appeal to me at all.

wheadon · 26 Jan 2009, 16:15 (Ref:2379685)

I know what you mean. We managed to get a well sorted Sheane MK1 for very very cheap. My best mate craig who's gonna drive it is a novice. He's going to get his licence this year, we're gonna do a bit of testing nd hopefully Silverstone, Donnington and the Brands festival this year before doing the whole championship in 2010. He's done a bit of indoor and outdoor go-karting and he's pretty quick and I said oh do the funcup schollarship. He got round to the 2nd round and the bug just bit him really. This gives me some more practice at running a team too. It's something I'd love to do in the future and I've been taught by some good professional people.

We're looking for a new trailer but one that's covered. There's one on ebay at the mo which we're keeping out eye on but we'll just have to wait and see.

Thing is this is all out of our pockets at the moment, no sponsorship. It's tight but we're sucseeding I hope!

Like you said you can race monteago's etc but I'd love to do a 24 hours in the 2cv. It's just the whole 24 hours thing!

Al Weyman · 26 Jan 2009, 17:43 (Ref:2379761)

Blimey PT how many times have I seen this before, disappointed young guys who think people are going to chuck money at them so they can go and have some fun. I remember once a young fellow, good looking guy looked the archtypical young racing driver came into ModProds with an immaculate white Metro and he had won a Top Gear sponsorship package for the season. Not huge money but would have paid his entries for the year. Anyhow he turns up at the first meeting and is not particularly quick, infact thats being polite he was bloody slow and got lapped by virtually everyone. Now may have been the car as not a good choice but the bottom line is he disappeared after that sans TopGear money and that was it. And its not the first time I have seen this so I ask the question if you were in a position to sponsor a young novice would you, I would'nt unless it was my son or daughter and even that is not strictly legal if using it as a tax fiddle.

MGDavid · 26 Jan 2009, 17:44 (Ref:2379762)

Quote:

Originally Posted by wheadon

................ but I'd love to do a 24 hours in the 2cv. It's just the whole 24 hours thing!

Me too; I made some enquiries a while back, and the sort of overall prices quoted left me thinking ' I just wanted to share a car, not buy the whole team lock stock and barrel'