A Perfect Fit

Dear friends, family and racing fans,

This past weekend, on the advice of my new mentor (who I promise to write about tomorrow), I turned up at the FIA GT championship race at Silverstone to see who I might meet and continue to immerse myself in the European motorsport scene. So with no official responsibilities, I set off to see what I could learn. On account of my relationship with Ferrarichat.com I felt I should take a bit of time from the day to keep an eye on the red machines and see how they go.

While there were Ferrari's entered into every major class from the headline GT series through the GT3 category, there was in fact one class which was ALL Ferrari's, the European Ferrari Challenge.

In their own literature the Ferrari Challenge is a self-confessed place for 'gentleman' racers. These drivers are the ones who have no aspirations to compete in Le Mans or Formula 1 but want to enjoy some of the worlds finest circuits in some, lets be honest, ridiculously expensive and incredible machinery. That hardware is in fact none other than the Ferrari F430 Challenge cars which has brakes that are bigger than the wheels on my road car, utulize an ultra effecient paddle shifting system which my grandmother could master, and exudes a noise which is one of the finest in modern day motorsport.

To house all of the competitors' cars and keep the F430's dry while the mechanics are working the series has set up a football field length tent which housed Ferrari's as far as you can see. As I walked over to the Ferrari Challenge complex, I recognized the racing series sponsor right away, the Black and Decker Company. All of the cars in the entire series were adorned with their logo on the top part of the windshields. As an educated 'strategic marketer' I was a bit surprised by this in all fairness, I would have expected to see an investment firm, bank, or yacht manufacture.

The Ferrari challenge is mostly non-professional racing drivers and as a result, the racing fans pay more attention to the cars and the famous marquee moreso than the actual racing. So the question naturally arose, how does Black and Decker fit with a bunch of gentleman racers?

Now at first I had to think about it, Black and Decker produces some of the world finest power, garden, automotive, and home tools. Their products are sold through hardware retail chains to the masses around the world. What could sponsoring a bunch of rich guys driving around in their Ferrari's mean to the brand?

After the first Ferrari Challenge race went off, which was an interesting affair, I had a second chance to walk back through the Ferrari Super Dome. It was at that point I realized exactly why, it is a brilliant strategy for Black and Decker to be involved with the series.

While on the track the racing might not be particularly professional and the drivers times might be a bit off the ultimate performance, there was no question that the mind-bending carnage these "gentleman" churned out was real, and it was going to take some "real" tools to get these cars back into action (along with a minor miracle in some instances).

My eyes were amazed as I witnessed spanner men using their Black and Decker tools to smash, bend, and re-straighten every conceivable angle of what seemed to be about half of the cars that were in the first race. For my own sake I have seen a Ferrari parts price list and I wasn't sure if I should laugh, or cry, about the cost of repairing and replacing such bits. The mechanics were clearly feeling good about 'job security' at this particular moment! The Black and Decker tools were being put through the ringer of the 'worst possible scenario' and by the time to push off for the second race all but the most disasterous cases were making their way back to the track.

In the end it appears Black and Decker found themselves a great way to showcase their tools. I would certainly talk to them about backing me, but unless they were to create a special tool for polishing trophies, I don't know if I could showcase their tools as well as the ferrari challenge!

I hope you are all doing very well and thank you to those of you who wrote me over the weekend with your fantastic support and encouragement.

Sincerely,

Michael