Product Before Cash: How Most Sponsorships Really Start

Say the word "sponsor" to a new racer and they picture a check. Ask the brands, and most of them picture a box of parts. That gap explains a lot of unanswered emails. A racer asks for money from a company whose entire racing program runs on product, the request doesn't match anything the company does, and it goes in the pile. The racers who get started fastest ask for what the brand actually gives, then use it to prove they're worth more.

Most brands sponsor with product, and they'll tell you so

At a PRI Show panel I hosted on sponsorship success stories, I asked the brands what they actually give racers. Kyle Kietzmann of BELL Racing didn't hesitate. "Typically, most of our sponsorships are product related," he said. "There are so many worthy racers, worthy race teams that it would be impossible for us monetarily to support everybody. So we really look at product sponsorship opportunities."

Even BELL's track deals work that way. "We became the official helmet of Knoxville Raceway because we did a product sponsorship to protect their flagmen and some of their push truck people." Marketing and exposure grew out of it afterward.

Bill Tichenor of Holley was even more direct about cash. With about 30 brands and 25,000 part numbers, he said, "every racer in the world want them for free." Holley reaches racers through contingency programs with sanctioning bodies instead. "We don't do individual cash sponsorships per racer, never have in my 24 years at Holley."

Julian Gill, CEO of Eibach, said the same about his company: "We never give money. It's always product. And we see it as a two-way street." ▶ Watch the panel

None of this means cash doesn't exist. It means the front door at most endemic brands is a product door, and pitching cash at it marks you as someone who hasn't done the research.

Product deals have rules of their own

A product deal isn't a smaller version of a cash deal. It has its own logic, and Tichenor laid it out. Holley wants its newest products in the hands of racers who can help sell them. "Don't give away old products. Try to seed some new products, because that's our lifeblood is selling new stuff." When Holley launched its EFI line, it seeded winners who could also help other racers at the track learn the product.

He also warned racers against letting free parts design their car. "Don't ever build a car based on what you get free," he said. What Holley really wants is the opposite: "The best people for us is when a guy loves our parts because he really loves our parts and then he promotes them for us." He told the story of YouTube star Cleetus McFarland, who was about to switch engine management systems. Holley introduced itself, showed him what the product could do and backed it with tech support. "Now he promotes our product because he really loves our product, and that's what you really want, is not just some guy that took it because it was free and forgets about you." ▶ Watch Bill Tichenor tell it

Heath Cofran, who handles media and company communications for Alpinestars, gets the same request from the other direction. Racers ask what they have to do to get free gear, and his answer is a question: "If you're looking for free stuff, what is your influence? What is your presence to bring that to the brand? Where is your value for us to say, here's some free gear or here's a discount?" The racer he wants is the one who actually explains the product to the people who ask, because "you're driving people to go buy the product, not just, yeah, cool, I look good." ▶ Watch Heath Cofran on product

Treat a product deal as a tryout

For a brand entering a new market, product is how it tests racers and how racers earn credibility. When Engine Ice started looking at drifting, Scott Lukaitis offered product to racers on the call because the brand was new to the car world. "We're a new brand into automotive, so we don't have the reputation like we do in powersports. So I want people to try it. I want people to tell me this stuff works." That, he said, is how a small brand grows: "when you're telling me it works and you're telling your friend it works and your friends are telling your friends it works." ▶ Watch Scott Lukaitis on this

Morgan Lucas, who raced in NHRA before moving to the sales side of Lucas Oil, said the product relationship is also how brands judge a racer's motives. Lucas Oil does a lot of product sponsorships. But a racer asking for cash who has "never even been interested in trying their oils or products, any of their additives or whatever it is, then it kind of makes it look like you're in for the wrong reasons." ▶ Watch Morgan Lucas explain

Product can grow into the biggest deal you'll ever have

The best argument for starting with product is what it can turn into. Jason Coleman of Coleman Motorsports had read my book, sent me his deck for feedback, and got an introduction to Eibach. He wasn't asking for a title sponsorship. "Frankly, all I was looking for was product. I wanted to get a couple thousand dollars worth of product," he said. His truck was unbranded on purpose, and he spent the call asking about Eibach's business and targets instead of pitching. The conversation turned into a one-race deal, then King of the Hammers, then a full year together. "It was an intro that led to me asking for product and turned into what is now my title sponsorship."

Julian Gill described the same deal from Eibach's side. Most decks never make it out of the marketing office, he said, but this one arrived on his desk with his sales and marketing managers both behind it. He repeated what his marketing manager told him about Coleman: "He's offering us stuff rather than taking stuff off us." ▶ Watch the Coleman and Eibach story

And Gill's favorite example of product paying off has nothing to do with racers' budgets at all. Eibach supplied product, never money, to Audi's DTM program for three or four years. Engineers from that race team later moved into Audi's production side and brought Eibach with them. "So really for three or four years outlay of free product, we've ended up with about 20 years worth of OE production, which is probably our most successful financially sponsorship." ▶ Watch Julian Gill on the Audi deal

That's a manufacturer's version of the same truth every grassroots racer can use. Product is the brand's lowest-risk way to find out whether you deliver. Deliver, and the box of parts becomes the reference that gets you everything after it.

The takeaway

• Ask for what the brand gives. For most endemic companies that means product, discounts or contingency, not cash.
• Run parts you'd buy anyway, and never build your car around whatever is free.
• Ask about new products the brand is launching. That's where its seeding budget goes.
• Promote the product like a fan: explain it, answer questions, send people to buy it, and report what happened.
• Treat the product deal as your audition. Over-deliver in year one and the conversation about money starts itself.

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