Yes, Paladin Rally has a new, albeit temporary, boost in the numbers. I have spent the last month out here on the East Coast helping out with various tasks such as sponsorship packet assembly, car re-prep, random girl ogling, and various shop b*tchery. Each one holds its own unique challenges, lessons, and rewards.
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The sponsorship packet is something that I have a little (a wee little, like kiddy pool in the backyard little) experience with. Not with motor sports, but with other marketing endeavors stemming from my college years which I am still on "sabbatical" from. I will get back, hopefully this winter, but that's another story. When pitching any idea to any potential client, which a sponsor is in the truest of senses, you need to know exactly what you’re talking about. To know what I’m talking about I need to research, research, hit myself in the head, research, walk around, and research. There’s a lot of research involved, the other steps are just to keep myself from going crazy, which those of you who know me best will be thinking “didn’t he go crazy years ago?”, well yes I did, and I’m just trying to prevent a further slip down that hill. After three weeks, a trip to Ohio, and hours staring at a computer screen, I feel I have the research I need done. I’ve got my picture of the “typical” Rally fan/competitor/volunteer down, and I have as much of Paladin Rally’s media exposure from this year as I can find. Now I just need to present a worthy proposal to potential sponsors out of it. I will basically be a bum at the side of the road asking for money, but with a witty sign and a twinkle in the eye. The reward for all of the work I’m doing will hopefully be a sponsorship worth enough to run a full season next year. And I think I can do it. As for the car re-prep I've learned a lot. I’ve crewed for a couple teams in the past and I had a rough idea of what was involved, for them. It varies tremendously from team to team it seems. Some run pretty clean, with a “tame” car, and wind up with very little re-prep besides cleaning the car and checking fluids; some run decently clean, with decent cars, and need to replace parts that have broken at the last event, weather its from the event or just from the car being “decent”. Then there’s Matt. Matt has a very overworked car, and a very hard driving style. It’s not that he wants to be hard on the cars, but to compete at the level he does, you really need to be. Since I arrived here straight from LSPR I was able to help out in the tare down of Dannii, and since Tall Pines is next week, I’ve also been able to help in her re-prep. A lot goes into these stages, complete gutting of the interior, complete disassembly of the suspension on all four corners, complete change of the fluids, and changing all of the brake pads/plug wires/spark plugs, and of course the ignition pack. Then the car has to be hand washed; inside, outside, underside, and engineside. Then the extra damage can be assessed. Dannii is old and used, not old and used like a retired adult film star, but like an old horse. She’s been with you through the good times and the bad, and she’s never given out along the way. She’s just tired. It’s time for her to rest, but since Matt has to push for the North American Championship, she has to go out for one more fight. To get her ready we welded up the chassis, re-painted her rock blasted bottom, and repaired her Kevlar skid plates. Once that was done all that had to be done was the re-assembly. Complete re-assembly of the suspension on all four corners, complete re-instillation of the interior, and a complete nut and bolt check to make sure we didn’t forget anything. She’s now ready to fight. The random girl-ogling is something I would do anywhere, so I’ll just skip to the last, the random shop-b*tchery. I’ve been through it before working in restaurants, where ever you go; you need to start from the bottom to learn on your way up the ladder. Luckily Matt takes it pretty easy on me, and just has me sort some things now and then, or clean up a corner of the shop. This job will be mine I believe until some other overly-eager, not to bright kid takes my place. I’m fine with that for now. In total it’s been one month here, and one month to go. With all I’ve learned about the car, the re-prep from Tall Pines should go a lot faster. The real task will be buckling down and finishing up the marketing plan. I’ve got to finish the sponsor packet, and apply a “unified marketing campaign” for the team, both of which will take some time. As my closing statement I will leave you with one gem of advice: Never, NEVER watch Pink Flamingoes. |
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