boxing day stardust

2007-01-11T01:24:00.000-08:00

boxing day stardust.

“Apollo” written in big letters on the side of the Sainty Dragster, for a while it may have seemed easier to get a man on the moon but the Sainty family team is closing every gap now with very good success during the Boxing Day extravaganza.

WESCO finally happened after a bit of negative banter on the web and in the pits. In spite of all the bad luck/difficulties faced by John Mancini after his press release that he’d be racing at the start of the season, the “Wesco Racing” team made it to WSID for the American invasion.
Pommy Steve Read was the pilot while Mark Mariani took a back seat for this session.
Gee it was good to see them out there, very strong appearance for a first outing.
From a marketing point of view it’s really simple for me I just think that ignorant comments by a few don’t do the sport any favours at all. A company like of WESCO should be treated with far more respect than what I have witnessed.
How the hell does anyone think they’re gonna attract sponsors to a sport while they cast aspersions on those very sponsors when they find tough times trying to get themselves involved.
All teams know how dreadfully difficult it is to get a team together at all, especially TOP FUEL while most people wouldn’t have a clue how to start a Nitro motor. Seems Richard Magri did just fine.

The Wesco press release stated that they’d bring something never seen before to TOP FUEL and I think they have.
I think the café style partitions and trendy dress sense in the Wesco pit looked great, a rather cosmopolitan outlook which will attract more of that kind of person to the sport.
I hope to see this sport fashionable for the next generation.
The Skips team watched John Mancini himself fill his fridge and sweep his pit in the middle of the night… two, three? O’clock in the morning…
It appears we’ve got a great new team on the rise.
Good luck “Wesco” Good luck John, you inspire me. But it’s not enough.

Supercharged Adam Nicholls mentioned to me that he’d been worried about his favorite sport through perceived lack of attendance lately but if the Boxing Day treat is a benchmark to judge the future from then I think we’re back on track if there was ever any doubt.
We all know what a great sport Drag racing is, one of the great things to survive from the previous millennium. We have survived consumerism into the twenty first century so now we are here to be consumed.

I’ve spoken to brand managers of major companies… they’re all looking at us.
One major booze player told me that she thought drag racing had legs but they haven’t worked out how to separate responsible driving from advertising on our cars, or anyone else’s cars for that matter.
I know though that if the other ‘big drink’ companies could find themselves up there looking as good as or better than Jack Daniels, they’d have a second look.
But there really isn’t a bigger team out there than the Boss. There are notable others but… … …
… … … We’ll have to find smaller sponsors to add up and build image to attract the big fish… there’s no way out of that.
The bigger a team looks, the more chance for a major sponsor to spend millions seems to be the vibe I get...
… Or put on a great show… there’s nothing cooler than watching The Boss get off a Nitro Harley and into a Top Alcohol car then a Door Slammer and finally often enough a burnout car…
This entertainment value from one guy is a key to successful major sponsorship.
Still I don’t think a national sponsor will be easy without at least another major track, better Victoria than the ACT.

2007 will definitely be a year for sponsors either way as long as teams take note of a few things.
To echo a past editorial by John Baremans… dress sense will take you a long way.
So will a professional business/racing website.
If you can give a potential sponsor a business card with a web address on it, they can take the address back to their office where they will look at it over again to make a decision.
If you don’t have a website then sponsors have nothing to look at or think about.
The Stuart Bishop competition is a great example of how to push a team with their website.

Though if you don’t have the money for your own site, consider some networking like the Macarthur Drag Racers or the Supercharged Outlaws… a club can help build a team site.
http://www.macarthurdragracers.com/ should be up within the next month or so and each individual member can have a page or more to themselves listed in the members section.

Posters can be sold if you have a dragster you have to try to market yourself with T-shirts and posters… frame or make trophies from old pistons and stuff… … collectables with your name on them will go a long way as the sport grows... sign the fucken thing!

Nuff said for now.
Bill Zunic.
Skips Racing.

billzunic

boxing day stardust