Starting a racing team??
Discussion
aliboi said:
jon- said:
Little money + racing team are two words you will never hear together, other than scumball type events.
This may be better in general motorsport.
But wouldnt you be able if you had enough sponsors to get all the money you need? This may be better in general motorsport.
Carnage said:
aliboi said:
jon- said:
Little money + racing team are two words you will never hear together, other than scumball type events.
This may be better in general motorsport.
But wouldnt you be able if you had enough sponsors to get all the money you need? This may be better in general motorsport.
The better you are (i.e. at winning) the less difficult you will find it to get sponsorship, but you will be in a large group of people all fighting for a relatively small amount sponsorship; you have to be very good to have any chance at all, and without any pedigree behind you it would be exceptionally difficult to get sponsorship. That's any sponsorship at all, never mind enough to pay for the whole thing.
A possibilty is running multi-car team for other paying 'arrive and drive' racers and then use the profits from that to pay for your own racing, which some people have done. Usually though to make any worthwhile profit (enough to cover your own racing) it would have to be in a high profile championship where almost all the cars are run by teams. Then to attract paying drivers or really stand any chance of winning you would need a demonstrable amount of experience in preparing and winning in other series.
lewis1 said:
your best bet would be to become a mechanic and build up lots of contacts and experience in high end motorsport, then use this to help you and start off as just a self employed mech and then work your way into having a workshop etc, eventually you will have a team
Thats more what i wanted to hear thank you.aliboi said:
Can anyone tell me about starting my own racing team?
I probs wont be starting one i just wanted to know how hard it is and im generally curious.
I mean can you start one with little money and get the money for everything for say a typical 24hr race by getting sponsors??
Im curious!
Starting your own racing team is incredibly hard work and if you also have a day job you would want to have to do it VERY VERY badly as you will have almost no free time or spare weekends.I probs wont be starting one i just wanted to know how hard it is and im generally curious.
I mean can you start one with little money and get the money for everything for say a typical 24hr race by getting sponsors??
Im curious!
Can you do it with very little money? Well money is relative but you would need as a minimum the money for basic infrastructure and of course a car to race. Do you have somewhere suitable to prep the car or would you need to rent somewhere? Then you also need people to help run and maintain the car and unless you know people with suitable experience willing to volunteer they will need paying.
By getting the money from sponsors? No, highly unlikely everyone is struggling to find sponsors right now so it is hard enough for established teams let alone someone starting from scratch. We have some experienced people working (as volunteers) for our team and it is not easy right now.
I would also say trying to do a 24 hour race first off would be over ambitious, I would only start considering it now after two years of running.
But yes it can be done for (relatively) little money as we have done exactly that. The key is our team is made up of a group of committed individuals with complimentary talents who do it for the love of it, we have no rent to pay and we have a handy driver so we get results that in normal circumstances our budget shouldn't allow, which improves our chances of raising a budget for the future.
I am not trying to put you off but I would reiterate again it is a lot of hard work, so it has to be something you have a passion to do.
Hope that helps....
As Robin says, what you need is an infrastructure, even if it is minimal. The basics being a workshop, a transporter (the minimum being a van/car and trailer, but preferably a truck of somw sort), equipment (garage tools etc)... and other than that you need some ability/expertise in the running of a race car. Then you need to convince one or more owner/driver{s} that you are capable of running their car so they will pay you to prep, transport and run their car. The latter is difficult to get without the former in place - but not impossible. That's how the majority of teams work, few teams actually own the cars; the cars are either owned by the drivers or occasionally leased from their owner.
Commercial sponsors are very difficult to acquire and you would really struggle to secure commercial sponsorship with nothing in place to start with. Most sponsors in motorsport are companies linked with the drivers in some way - family business, own business, a supplier to the family or own business, a business owned by a close family friend, etc....
A few years ago I was involved with running a team that had initially started with the team owner's own money but despite success, winning a championship in only its second season, soon ran out of money and was on the verge of going bust. I was asked to try to find a sponsor and was lucky enough to find one at very short notice. At that point all the 'team' (it was just one guy - the team owner) had was a rented industrial unit that he was on the verge of being evicted from because he couldn't pay the rent, and a 40ft transporter trailer (no tractor unit!) worth £15K, and a few bits and bobs of equipment. I managed to identify a potential sponsor and sell them a deal mostly based on the hospitality. A budget of £250K was agreed to do a major national racing serie. The car was leased in from another team and a couple of well known drivers (one a TV personality) were secured. All the team staff (engineers, mechanics, hospitality hostesses) were drafted in only for the weekends (race meetings).
On the face of it, it was a big race team that had some good results over the season, with two wins and sever4al top five finishes; but the reality was the 'team' had nothing and even when the season was over the team owner was skint!
So anything is possible! Depends how good your selling skills are!
Commercial sponsors are very difficult to acquire and you would really struggle to secure commercial sponsorship with nothing in place to start with. Most sponsors in motorsport are companies linked with the drivers in some way - family business, own business, a supplier to the family or own business, a business owned by a close family friend, etc....
A few years ago I was involved with running a team that had initially started with the team owner's own money but despite success, winning a championship in only its second season, soon ran out of money and was on the verge of going bust. I was asked to try to find a sponsor and was lucky enough to find one at very short notice. At that point all the 'team' (it was just one guy - the team owner) had was a rented industrial unit that he was on the verge of being evicted from because he couldn't pay the rent, and a 40ft transporter trailer (no tractor unit!) worth £15K, and a few bits and bobs of equipment. I managed to identify a potential sponsor and sell them a deal mostly based on the hospitality. A budget of £250K was agreed to do a major national racing serie. The car was leased in from another team and a couple of well known drivers (one a TV personality) were secured. All the team staff (engineers, mechanics, hospitality hostesses) were drafted in only for the weekends (race meetings).
On the face of it, it was a big race team that had some good results over the season, with two wins and sever4al top five finishes; but the reality was the 'team' had nothing and even when the season was over the team owner was skint!
So anything is possible! Depends how good your selling skills are!
Edited by timarnold on Wednesday 26th August 11:53
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