Race Team PR job, tell me about them.

I have talking to someone this week about becoming the PR person for a up coming race team. The things started with the person seeing my stickers on my car from the challenge last Oct. I am not going to go into details just yet for what team and which series. But I know that this will involve a lot of travel and moving to a new state. But also a huge increase in money also. Everyone said I would be stupid to turn this down. I am trying to do some research right now into just what I would doing, what extra training I need to look into doing over the next few months. I know a few of you have done things like this so I am asking for advice and insight. If anyone knows any good places online to read about jobs or blogs or advice, please feel free to post links and ideas also. Thank you guys very much

In reply to ckosacranoid:

In general, as long as you go in with the realization there may only be one season before the team loses sponsorship and it all falls apart - and you're ok with that - then hell yes go for it!

Single? Helps with all that travel.

I don't have much to add but I know that the social media is key. I liked John Forces Facebook page and that guy is constantly adding updates on it. I would believe they expect that type of presence on social media along with all the other old school PR stuff.

My 2 cents:

Spelling counts.

Return phone calls.

Know your audience.

If you don't know the answer, it's okay to admit it.

Big thing on the PR side is to make the driver as human as possible. It helps to see them with the family, out in the real world.

I think Christina Nielsen's team does a great job with her PR.

As other's have said, racing is a fickle business especially for an up and coming team. They may or may not even be there next year. Or sometimes even next race...I'm looking at you O'Gara Motorsport.

I would add grammar to Davids list above.

If the driver is a good looking guy then stud farm him out. Even if he sucks, the ladies will swoon. Know how many nascar ladies are in it for "handsome man" factor? Same reason chicks watch football.

Volatile. My sister has been doing it for 30 years, and the second something doesn't go right or they can get someone else cheaper, she's gone. I wouldn't recommend it.

I figure at this point, its a step up from the dead end jobs I have been and even after 6 months to a year its a good prop on the resume and a lot more money then I am making right now. At the very least its something to try and get to say I did then wonder what ifs down the road. Yes, I know I have to really work on my typing and spelling for sure. The other thing any one have weird ideas for making press releases more amusing then the standard ones everyone does?

Do they run in a stable series, i.e. NHRA or Nascar ? TUDOR/ISMA/ALMS and Indy are far too volitile to consider for long term full time employment. Club racing sanctioning bodies, such as SCCA, NASA are incredibly stable, but their teams aren't hiring employees. Some, PCA, seem great to work for on the outside, and the sponsorship partners and vendors that you'd work with are great, but the organizational structure of having volunteers with no skin in the game or professional background in motorsport is murderous from a marketing and promotional side. Make sure whichever team or group that it is has a current media kit and demographic information regarding the competition within the series and the series audience. If they don't then you can't promote the unknown and undocumented.

Here's my two cents:

Is this something you've always wanted to do? If you aren't anchored down, GO FOR IT!!! You will regret it if you don't. And it's funny how the Challenge can lead to other things for it's participants.

The GRM Challenge also opened up some doors for me. After my first event in $2009, I came away with a whole new spin on car culture in general. I also gained perspective in seeing that the event itself was another in a long line of adventures my friends and I had been involved in since we were kids. As a historian and storyteller, I started writing them down for posterity's sake.

The next time we came back to the Challenge, we brought our weirdo autocross Cherokee and a milk crate of turbo bits we didn't have time to install. After some pondering (and drinking), we decided that 11:00PM would be a good time to install that stuff, right there in the Best Western Gateway Grand parking lot. One thing led to another, and members of the magazine staff (including a very tired David S. Wallens) were outside checking out the build until the wee hours. I became the mouthpiece of the team as the other guys wrenched, and handled the PR aspects of the build. I'd go onto continue that role at every Challenge we would attend in the following years.

In 2013, after we got back from the Challenge, Brian Lohnes, one of the owners of the blog BangShift.com reached out to our team to do a feature on the Jeep. When we all met up, me and my big mouth once again ended up doing a lot of the talking. In conversation, I saw an opportunity to ask Brian how the heck you get into the writing/blogging game, as I've always wanted to do it. I grew up reading magazines like Hot Rod and Car Craft, and a lot of those guys (like David Freiburger, Matt King, Steve Mangante, etc.) that he knew were my idols before I even knew what GRM was! It was enlightening, and we kept in contact after our meetup. I also befriended BangShift contributor and photographer Dave Nutting that day. The connection was made, but it took a while for me to step through the door.

About a year later at the $2014 Challenge, with beers in hand at the host hotel, I had a talk with Mr. Wallens (now a friend of mine) about how to break into the industry. I mentioned the BangShift connection, and he basically told me I was crazy not to go after that. What was I waiting for? I was afraid of failing, that's what. But as he and a few others said, you'll never know until you try.

So try I did.

I wrote a story about a night my friends and I had in a buddy's beater Monte Carlo that will forever live in infamy, and wouldn't you know, they LOVED IT. (This is also how GRM'er Pseudosport got his name, from this very car!)

http://bangshift.com/bangshiftapex/high-school-confidential-hilarious-story-psuedosport-monte-carlo-near-death-experiences/

I've been writing regularly for BangShift.com ever since. And if I didn't go to the Challenge, none of it would have happened.

Sometimes, life has a way of showing you the door to opportunity. It's up to you to open it.

In reply to SilverFleet:

That is really cool!!!!

In reply to ckosacranoid:

Check out these guys: Magnus Racing. They are very entertaining to follow.

In reply to ckosacranoid:

Subscribing to this thread. Apparently, a couple days ago, I became a marketing/PR intern for my friend that I crew for. He has a great story that I can hopefully use to our advantage in getting backing, I just don't know really where to start.

In reply to grafmiata:

Email me dzajano (at) Gmail

Give me a short background, I'll likely have some follow up questions and an idea of plan of attack for you.

David S. Wallens wrote: My 2 cents: Spelling counts. Return phone calls. Know your audience. If you don't know the answer, it's okay to admit it.

This applies to just about everything in life.

To the above I would add: Be aware that it is your job to bring in revenue above and beyond your pay so that the team can do this again next year. You should have some metric that tracks this.

In reply to NOHOME:

This 1000x and also be aware that if they're comfortable with current existing sponsorship levels that you've established in a few years, that if that can maintain the sponsor ship deliverables without your assistance, that they'll cut you loose, discounting the relationship that you established with the sponsor in generating the partnership. (That's when you contact the sponsor directly and pillage their partnership resources for another outlet).

In reply to captdownshift:

Email sent.

thank you everyone for the comments and i remember reading about the monty carlo at some point. really been looking at different points and this coming weekend we will be defining just hwta the job is going to be doing when we meet up with other legal people. but thanks for the comments guys and I will be keep everyone in the loop with whats going on though.