Deciding you want to become a racing driver is easy. Even getting your racing license isn’t especially difficult. It’s actually getting yourself on the grid that’s the complicated bit. You’ve got to choose a car to race and where to race it, there’s the practicalities and logistics to deal with and, of course, you’ve got to pay for it all. Somehow.
Navigating through all these considerations can be a massive palaver, but there are well-trodden paths to take. You just need to ask the right questions of the right people to find your way. But where to begin?
“Think about where you want to end up in two or three years, not just what you want to do now.” That’s the advice of Cameron Hawes, boss of PowerDrive Racing. The outfit offers a wide range of services to would-be and existing racing drivers, from one-to-one coaching to car storage, to arrive-and-drive packages in the BRSCC BMW 1 Series Supercup (the car is pictured below).
Many of Cameron’s customers come to him not really knowing what sort of racing they want to do, and he guides them through the process. He says: “The City Car Cup [for the Toyota/Citroen/Peugeot small car trio] is an ideal, all-purpose starting point. But, if you want to drive a purpose-built race car, a classic Formula Ford is a great, versatile car.”
But, as Cameron suggests, where you want to go can dictate where you start. He has an arrive-and-drive customer who started out in the 1 Series Supercup as the jumping off point for getting to touring cars. He also says it makes a great training ground if you ultimately want to race GTs.
Arrive-and-drive packages are an increasingly popular way of going racing, because they take so much of the hassle out of it. You literally just pay the money, turn up on the day and get in a fully prepared race car operated by dedicated professionals. Pick any one-make series – where all the cars are identical – and you can find at least one company offering an arrive-and-drive service.
“We can offer tailored advice based on what kind of car someone wants to drive, and how much they have to spend,” says 750 Motor Club communications manager James Winstanley. It’s something they do a lot, 750MC hosting more novice drivers than any other UK racing club. “We try to make racing as affordable as possible,” James says, a point exemplified by the new-for-2025 Suzuki Swift Sport Challenge (the car is pictured below).#
The series features the 2006-2011 Swift Sport, all prepared with an identical kit of parts that costs less than £5,000, on top of the cost of a car – £2,500 buys a good one. A remarkable 30 drivers have signed up, no doubt attracted by the low cost and financial incentives for driving the car to and from the races. The parts kit has been designed so that fitting and maintaining it all is easily DIY’d, as well.
Owning your race car gives you much more freedom over where and when you race, but there are multiple layers of hassle to deal with. There are specialist companies you can engage to take care of some or all of it for you, but that can be fearsomely expensive. And it can make it more difficult to build a rapport with the car.
Gareth Evans, digital editor at CAR’s sister title Motorcycle News, has raced for over 10 years on a DIY basis. He currently races a 1962 Sunbeam Alpine in Motor Racing Legends’ Pre-63 GT series. “I prepare the car at home before race meetings,” he says. “I do the oil changes, brake pad changes, all the stuff that I would class as the basics. But I have a person who helps me with more complicated mechanics.”
Having help at race meetings is vital, too. “It’s me and my family,” Gareth says. “I wouldn’t be able to do it without someone helping me at all the races, it’s just not feasible.” And that’s on top of storing and transporting the car, and finding accommodation at races, which can be a huge layer of hassle in itself.
But there’s more than just the car to deal with. There’s an awful lot of admin to do at a race meeting. “I strongly advise that you get some help at least at that first meeting from someone that has done it before,” Gareth says. “You get a lot of information in the final instructions, which are issued in the same week as the race, but you won’t know where to go to sign on, for instance.
“You’ve also got to get your car scrutineered, a very common place for people to get tripped up if the car isn’t prepared the way it needs to be. And where do you put the sticker after scrutineering? Finding where the assembly area is sometimes a challenge that tripped me up last year. There’s so many little things.”
It doesn’t end there. “You also need to know what your car’s going to do,” Gareth continues. “It sounds stupid, but my car’s not even simple to switch on. Test, test, test until you’re blue in the face. It’ll be super valuable and save a lot of money in race fees. The rate of how quick you get will be much steeper, because you’ve got fewer things to worry about. When you’re heading into that first corner, four cars abreast, you don’t what to think ‘what is my car going to do if I turn in’. It helps you manage your headspace.”
None of this is cheap. Even in the Suzuki Swift Sport Challenge, the cost of travel, accommodation, entry fees, brakes, tyres, fuel, damage repairs, unexpected engine rebuilds and so can quickly mount up. Cameron Howes charges £2295 per race in the 1 Series Supercup. You might be fortunate enough to able to afford the costs from your own pocket or write it off as a marketing expense for your business. But if you don’t have any money behind you, you’re going to have to find sponsorship. Which is the biggest layer of hassle.
Also a really intimidating one, especially if you’ve never tried to raise what could be substantial sums of money before. There are ways of making it easier for yourself, but where do you even start? Jess Shanahan of Racing Mentor has spent much of her working life helping teams and individual drivers find sponsorship. She says: “Dip into your existing contacts. Anyone you know that runs a business, that bank of people you can dip into. That’s a really easy way to get started at the very least.”
Not everyone has that, though, so you might need to be more creative. “Have a strong brand and storytelling presence,” Jess continues. “Have a marketing brain. Go to people saying ‘I might not have a big profile, but I know how to do something wild and fun that’ll get you a tonne of engagement.’ Having that brand and storyline is probably the best way to go for most people because it’s the most accessible. But there’s work to be done before you can go out and start pitching, because you’ve got to build that brand and story. Find that thing that makes you stand out from other drivers, which could come from your own personal story.”
It can help to go along to some racing meeting paddocks, especially for whichever series you’re thinking about entering, and seeing what sort of companies are already involved in sponsorship. That can help you spot potential gaps that you can target. Jess says: “I think the reason certain industries aren’t in motorsport isn’t because it’s not worthwhile to them, it’s just no-one with a good idea has pitched it. The easiest targets are often businesses local to you. People pitch to those all the time and they do well off it, especially if they’ve got contacts.”
It’s important to do your research on a company before you pitch to them, finding out what marketing activities they’re already involved in, and what in-house capabilities they have that you could leverage. Connecting with the company and its managers on social media platforms such as LinkedIn and engaging with their content can help. Networking events and conferences are great places to build contacts. All of which can help you get a foot in the door when the time comes to make your pitch.
But sometimes you’ve got to go in completely cold. Jess has some advice for those occasions: “I just go in with a really, really, really big silly idea. Like a stunt for the press. But don’t get too hung up on how you’ll do something in the first instance, what you need to do is get face-to-face with someone.”
Remember it’s about the value you, as a racing driver, can bring to sponsor. Jess says: “If a brand selling yachts only needs to sell one yacht a year, your goal as a racing driver is to help them sell that yacht. The commission is however much money, then you’re starting to get an idea of what the value you’re bringing there is.”
Porsche Sprint Challenge GB driver Toby Trice – who we’ve spoken to before in this series – is well aware of the value he brings to his sponsors, without whom he wouldn’t be able to race. “All of the value comes from what you can provide to that sponsor as a driver,” Toby says. “I find the best value I can bring is to those companies that offer high-value business-to-business relations. Because I love pleasing people, and being around people. I entertain guests throughout a race weekend, giving them a money-can’t-buy experience and that drives value back to them, which earns my sponsorship.”
Toby offers different levels of experience according to how significant a sponsor is, and what they want out of it. “At race meetings, I bring all my guests to the Porsche Clubhouse [the brand’s impressive hospitality suite], we have breakfast together, do a Q&A, go around the car, give them pictures, autographs. Usually a nice lunch, as well, giving them that cared for experience.”
Some of Toby’s sponsors are happy to just turn up to a race with a general admission ticket, but they still get a look behind the scenes. “We’ve showed [some sponsors] the data engineering, gave them some tips on how they can drive better, let them sit in the race car, all those kinds of things.”
There are things you can do away from race meetings, as well. “Hot lap experiences are the best,” Toby says. “I get such joy watching people have an adrenaline rush in the race car. I also recently took my car along to a sponsor’s corporate dinner. We had it on display and I stood there in my race suit and helmet, with smoke and lights around me. It created such a great talking point. They’re still talking about it a couple of months later. It’s about thinking outside the box for what you can do to create some attention for that business.”
Toby advocates having a relatively small portfolio of sponsors. “The more sponsors you’ve got, the more you dilute what you can do for them. Both at the track and away from it. If you’ve got 30 sponsors, how do you spread your time? There’s only so many hours in the day.”
Finding and managing sponsors isn’t easy, especially if you have a regular full-time job, as Toby does. So much so, some give up before they’ve really even started. “I find a lot of people struggle with their self-worth,” Jess Shanahan says. “They think they don’t have any value to a business, but it’s a whole host of things that could lead to a rejection.”
“Some days it’s really hard,” Toby says. “There are long days, but I think when you’ve got a love and a passion for somethings, the time comes. I find it somehow.”
The conversations I had in putting this article together have given me an awful lot to think about as I pursue my ambition to go racing. There’s no truly easy way of doing it. However you pursue it, there’s a lot of time, energy and particularly money involved. It’s the last of those that’s the biggest stumbling block for most people – it certainly is for me.
Do I have the ability to persuade sponsors to back me? Time will tell. For now, though, I need to pass an ARDS test to actually get my racing license. And that’s next.