Dylan King of Davis Bay has been signed by Level 1 Motorsports to race in the late model stock car series this season. King is ecstatic, but said that the hard part – gathering sponsors – is still ahead of him.
“I just got the call a few days ago and they signed me,” King said. “It’s a pretty big thing because now they’re starting me off in a late model stock car series, which is two steps down from NASCAR.”
King was called down to South Carolina for his evaluation last October. There was a $1,200 fee to cover the costs of track rentals – among other things – but the evaluation didn’t go as planned.
“They ended up crashing the car when I was down there testing,” King said. “So that was a big upset. I didn’t even get to race at all.”
King was offered a return of his fee, but he declined.
“I was like, ‘No, no. Trust me, guys. I’m coming back. You just tell me the second the car’s ready to go,’” King said.
Four months later, Level 1 Motorsports had built King a whole new car, a NASCAR sprint cup series racer that ran at Daytona 500.
“They said ‘we’re going to race in North Carolina this time, so could you come down in January?’” King said.
Two weeks after his evaluation in North Carolina, King got a call from Level 1 Motorsports. They wanted to sign him to their team, and the offer came with a souped-up Ford Mustang that King will be driving for Level 1.
“They’re not just looking at you as a driver, but as the entire package,” King said. “Are you marketable, how’s your sportsmanship, your personality? Everything that’s required because they’re going to be marketing you as their main driver.”
King said that he’s happy to be working with Level 1 Motorsports because “they’re a team that’s really trying to bring a grassroots feeling back into racing.
“Racing is so difficult to get into,” he continued. “The people who usually get in are the ones who have millions of dollars in the bank – or their family was born into racing so they kind of got the automatic in.”
A statement on the Level 1 Motorsports website reads, “It has become apparent that the over-the-top, free-spending that has become the norm in professional racing is no longer going to be a successful way to operate a team. … We are able to take local and regional racers and through our program bring them up to the NASCAR level on a budget that was never possible before.”
King is scheduled to begin racing in May, and will be going back to North Carolina in late April. Before that, though, he needs to get his sponsors in the bag so he can get the car decals printed ahead of time. Minimum sponsorship costs $1,000.
Sponsorship is more involved than advertising. A business that sponsors a racing team would get its logo on the car, and the sponsors would also sit down with the team to work out a business plan for promoting their company. It could involve product placement in YouTube videos or getting a particular brand into corporate events.
King said sponsorship depends on what the sponsor is looking for, which is then worked out in an agreement between the sponsor and the race team.
“The hardest thing is with the sponsorships, that’s where they lose everybody – because of all the side work,” King said. “A lot of guys just want to race weekends and don’t really understand that this is not just a career, it’s a life now. It’s something you’re doing every single day.”
