Has anyone here been sponsored before?

[Madmat 33]

I just got an offer of a semi-sponsor ship deal with Kyosho today (For more info have a look at my blog) and was wondering had anyone here been sponsored before and what the experiece was like or them?

 

 

[Sleepercivic 0]

I have some experience at this from both sides. In the early 90's I was sponsored by Team Associated for 3 years until I left my job running a race track/hobby shop for a job at Team Losi. I then became the Team Manager for Team Losi and ran the team for about 9 years. I got tired of all the travel and settled down in a grahics position now.

All i can suggest is that you consider this a "foot in the door". Be committed to your sponsor by running the products and promoting them to the best of your abilities. If you have a problem with the product, go direct to the team manager, do not complain at the track about your problems. Also when you run for them, be careful not to run products that conflict with your sponsor. Just pretend that if you owned the company, would you have a problem with an employee using a particular part, and if so, then do not run it.  The more feedback you can provide, the more valuable you will be to the company. Some of the best team drivers we fast at their local track, but were not good enough for national type events, but to me their feedback, relationships with the tracks and consumers were much more important than winning a race. I hope this helps a little. Good luck and congratulations on your sponsorship.

Richard Trujillo 

 

[TamiyaDan 8]

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[stulec52 50]

I have been fortunate enough to have many sponsors over the 24 years I have been racing.

  I never really did get any pressure to deliver race wins, mostly as Rich said it was about promoting the products I ran, helping out any other racers, not only the ones who ran those brands of product either !

Best thing about it was getting to go places I might not have gone too, meeting some tremendous people along the way.

 One good example of a full works driver helping me out at a time when I was not sponsored would be Todd Hodge, at a local event I happened to be running the same chassis as him, I just went over to say hi, very approachable guy, we got talking about the cars, he said to bring mine over, and he ended up re-building it somewhat, and putting on some new parts for me to run. After my runs, he kept asking how the car was, if it was working well for me, and if he could do anything else for me.  That was a great example to me that even though he was very busy himself, he still went out of his way to help a guy out, oh, and he won the event too !!