03 December 2009

Who Wants to Start a Race Team?

The thought definitely crossed my mind a time or two as a walked through the International Motorsports Industry Show, being held at the Indianapolis Convention Center.  Somewhere between 8-10,000 people will attend the two-day convention, bringing together just about every part of the auto-racing community.

If I had a clean credit history and a checkbook at my disposal, starting a race team would have been relatively easy from there.  Suppliers of everything from rack and pinion steering systems to screen-printed t-shirts made up the 572 booths at the convention.

Alright, let's start building a team: you want a racecar body?  Easy enough to find a builder here.  Tires, brakes and suspensions?  Done.  A loan from Wells Fargo?  Take care of.  Helmets and safety equipment?  Plenty to choose from.  Air filters? K&N, the official sponsor of the IZOD IndyCar Series can set you up with those.  Brakes?  You'll need some, and there are plenty of suppliers.  T-shirts and merchandise to sell? Just name the quantity, including specifically designed merchandise for women.

Robin Miller?  You'll need him around, just so you feel like a real IndyCar team.  He's there, too (though not in a booth, conducting interviews for SpeedTV).

The only thing missing from the "Build Your Own Race Team" experience was a booth to obtain victory cigars and/or models for each arm while gleefully celebrating a championship, Ganassi-style.

And with the convention center expanding through 2010 and the IMIS contracted to be in Indianapolis through 2015, I have a feeling that booth may be around next year. 

3 comments:

  1. I'm in if you are. I have $38.62 to spend. That may or may not get our driver a pair of racing gloves.

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  2. I'm in. We just need some more bloggers on board and maybe some actual people who know about racing. And about $6,999,962.38.

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  3. I work on a late model crew out of Toyota speedway and we would love to find someone who wants to buy a team. we are so tired of trying to find sponsors all the time. I drive, my friend drives, we have a crew chief that knows where to get all the good deals. We also have one late model car and trailer. We race every other weekend. The money you want to put in will make the decision on how competitive you want to be. You want the car in top five, be prepared to wreck the car a couple of times.

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