How to get junior road racers noticed for MotoGP?

[RDjase]

yes having a "cutie" in marketing is a definate bonus.

http://www.staceymcmahon.com.au/

The pics in her gallery are worth a look

[SWERVE]

http://www.staceymcmahon.com.au/

The pics in her gallery are worth a look

Mmmmmm nice!

Personally wouldnt care if the marketing person looked like Helen clarke on a bad day.............. if they could raise enough sponsorship for the like of Jake Lewis and newbies like Tyler etc to race at EJC or similar.....ay

[steveyb]

Where's Sandra S when we need her.

Just for a bit of balance of course.....

We raced against Stacey in 2007 in 125GP at the MotoGP meeting (when they had 125's and not the leaky shitty tractor class. All the boys were drooling.
Maybe that's why Hairy, Chambers and Kirk were so slow.....?

[gav]

Also helps that Stacey McMahon is the partner of Ben Reid, the guy running the team.

[Brett]

Can't help but think "what if" John Britten was still around... Moto3/Moto2 and the new MotoGP CRT teams would be right up his alley.

I've been pondering the idea of a "Team Kiwi" for some time, Moto3 definitely seems to be the place to start, as most of our younger blood are coming through from the Hyosung/Ninja 250 classes and they engine dynamics aren't totally different to a high revving single.

Shauns idea of a consortium putting up a 'share' and getting a return on any results has been tried and tested before with Scott Dixon, it's a gamble, but it could pay dividends with the right rider and the right person running the team.

It needs to be run as a business though the obvious consideration is remuneration, remembering that a number of riders are paying to be in a team, and a that aren't paying are riding for no pay other than any individual sponsor money.

If it gets off the ground (internet) and into a properly formulated plan, with credible people at the helm, and a rider I believe in I would be willing to come up with the cash to kick start it.

I would be very interested in being involved too, from the team management perspective. Gareth's right, it DOES need to be run as a business is run. A clear plan with a short term, medium term and long term focus needs to be developed. Serious work needs to be put into petitioning for corporate sponsorship (let's face it, without corporate sponsorship, the team would never get the necessary legs to go long term. It will take years to get serious traction in many cases and the cash burn rate can be quite high, bootstrapping it only gets you so far...success requires exposure and the right exposure at that.)

Strong management skills with dynamic, enterprising thinking will be needed. Contacts of the management team would be critical, both within motorsports, motorcycle racing and amongst the corporates so that doors can be encouraged to open.

The start for all of this would be the development of a business case which would outline strategically how a venture such as this could get itself going. I have a few business contacts who might be interested in being involved from a sponsorship perspective and would know the right people in the right places of large corporations to get serious sponsorship going as well as wealthy individuals (here in NZ, in South Africa and England) who might be convinced to pledge some support. I am sure that there are a few people here on KB who are reasonably well connected too.

There is no doubt that we have the engineering talent in NZ to pull this off and there are a few riders who possibly have the skills to make it on the world stage.

It is high time we had at least one kiwi racer in Moto2 and/or MotoGP and if others are serious about this, I would love to investigate it further. It will be hard work!