Racing Has Always Run on Relationships
Long before RaceTeams.com was a website, the idea behind it was already part of my life.
I grew up around short-track racing in Louisville, Kentucky. My dad, Billy, worked construction during the day and built race cars at night. I swept the shop floor, watched racers help other racers, and learned early that this sport has always survived on relationships, reputation, resourcefulness and people willing to help each other.
If somebody needed a part, somebody usually knew who had one. If a racer needed sponsorship, somebody made an introduction. When a team needed help getting to the next race, a local business might step up. Tracks needed racers, racers needed tracks, and all of us needed the businesses and people around the sport willing to support it.
That is still one of the things I love most about racing.
But after spending most of my life in the sport, I also became convinced that something important was missing.
*The relationships were there. The commercial infrastructure was not.
Where the Idea Came From
When I was about 15 years old, I was told that if I wanted sponsorship for my race car, I needed to go find it. So I went door to door talking to local businesses and came home with three sponsors.
One was a tire shop. The basic deal was simple: if I could help sell four sets of tires, they would give me one.
Nobody called any of that B2B marketing, activation or partnership development. We were just trying to figure out how to race.
Years later, I would spend more than 25 years working throughout the business side of motorsports with race teams, tracks, series, sanctioning bodies, manufacturers, sponsors and other businesses. I have had the opportunity to help build partnerships and commercial programs across major racing properties while seeing the sport from the local level all the way through national motorsports.
And the farther I went, the more often I saw versions of the same problem I had experienced as a kid.
There is a great fabricator nobody outside his region knows about. A team has valuable equipment or commercial inventory with no efficient way to reach the right buyer. A track has opportunities that never make it beyond its existing network. A driver is looking for sponsorship. A business wants to reach racers but doesn't know where to start. A service provider depends almost entirely on word of mouth. A sponsor wants to participate in motorsports but has no easy way to understand what is available.
At the same time, racers are searching private groups and general marketplaces for parts, teams are asking around for services, promoters are trying to grow purses and points funds, and fans are spending money throughout the sport.
There are good people, good businesses and real opportunities everywhere. They are just incredibly fragmented.
That's really where RaceTeams.com comes from. I believe racing has spent decades operating without the commercial infrastructure that almost every other mature industry takes for granted.
Why We Built RaceTeams.com
RaceTeams.com is being built to connect more of that fragmented racing economy in one place.
The goal is not to replace the relationships that make racing special. I don't think technology ever will, and I wouldn't want it to. The goal is to give those relationships better infrastructure so the right people, products, services and opportunities are easier to find.
We organize the marketplace around a few simple ways people already do business in racing.
Shop
Buy and sell race cars, parts, engines, equipment, trailers, merchandise, collectibles, supplies and other racing products.
Book
Find services, race seats, coaching, crew, fabrication, transportation, experiences, track access, rentals and professional motorsports support.
Partner
Discover sponsorships, hospitality, activation opportunities, promotional rights and other legitimate commercial partnerships.
And underneath all three is something just as important: connection. RaceTeams should make it easier to find the racers, teams, tracks, series, manufacturers, suppliers, service providers, promoters, sponsors, businesses and people who make the sport work.
That sounds relatively simple, but bringing those pieces together can create something racing has never really had at scale: a connected commercial ecosystem built specifically around motorsports.
Built for the People Who Keep Racing Going
I have tremendous respect for professional motorsports, and I want the biggest organizations in racing to use RaceTeams.com.
I hope national touring teams, global manufacturers, major suppliers, international competitors, premier tracks, sanctioning bodies and national brands eventually see RaceTeams as useful infrastructure for their businesses. Their participation brings inventory, customers, credibility, knowledge and economic activity into the marketplace.
But I also want to be clear about who I hope benefits from that growth.
The local racer. The family-owned team. The Saturday-night short track. The regional touring series. The engine builder, chassis shop, parts dealer and fabricator. The person mounting tires, wrapping cars, building shocks, hauling equipment or working late in the shop so somebody else can race this weekend.
They are not a small side of motorsports. They are the foundation of it.
The kid racing locally today might eventually become a professional driver, engineer, crew chief, mechanic, promoter or business owner. But even if they never do, their racing still matters. Local and regional motorsports are where much of this sport's culture, talent, businesses and lifelong relationships begin.
That's why I don't see participation from the top of the industry and support for the grassroots as competing ideas.
The big teams don't have to lose for the little guy to win.
In fact, I believe the opposite can be true. The more national and international organizations participate, the more useful the marketplace becomes. More buyers create opportunities for sellers. More sellers create value for buyers. More businesses create more connections. And more marketplace activity gives RaceTeams more opportunity to invest back into the racing communities that helped create it.
Putting Value Back Into Racing
RaceTeams.com is a business, and it has to become a healthy business if it is going to serve this industry for the long term. But I also believe we have an opportunity to build that business differently.
When the racing community helps RaceTeams create value, I want us to look for ways to put some of that value back into racing.
Through qualified RaceTeams Promoter Programs, RaceTeams may share up to 25% of eligible Marketplace Service Fee revenue with participating tracks, racing series, event promoters, sanctioning bodies and other qualifying racing organizations.
Depending on the organization and program, those proceeds can help support things like points funds, purses, prizes, special awards, racer programs, events and other initiatives that strengthen racing.
Think about something as ordinary as a racer buying a used set of shocks.
The seller gets a customer. The racer gets the equipment they need. RaceTeams earns its marketplace fee. And when that customer or transaction qualifies through a participating Promoter Program, some of the marketplace revenue RaceTeams earns can also flow back to the racing organization that helped introduce that customer to the marketplace.
Now think beyond one set of shocks. Parts, tires, tools, new racing supplies, fabrication, setup services, coaching, transportation, race seats, track experiences, merchandise, collectibles and purchases made by fans are changing hands throughout racing every day.
That commerce is already happening.
RaceTeams creates an opportunity to connect more of it and, where possible, allow some of the value generated by that commerce to find its way back into the sport.
Someone shopping on RaceTeams.com may therefore be supporting racing in more ways than one. They can support the racer, team, shop or business they buy from while also helping create marketplace activity that can benefit participating racing organizations.
That idea matters to me.
If the racing community helps RaceTeams grow, RaceTeams should look for ways to help racing grow with it.
Local Roots. A Global Opportunity.
RaceTeams was inspired by experiences in grassroots racing, but the opportunity is much larger than one type of racing, one region or even one country.
Motorsports has always crossed those lines. Drivers move between disciplines. Suppliers serve multiple forms of racing. Technology developed at the professional level eventually finds its way into local shops. Kart racers become professional drivers. Local crew members move into national touring series. Manufacturers sell around the world. Teams buy from businesses hundreds or thousands of miles away.
I want RaceTeams.com to reflect that entire ecosystem.
A Saturday-night racer in Indiana should be able to discover a supplier they didn't know existed. A European manufacturer should be able to reach teams in the United States. A regional track should be able to expose an opportunity to businesses outside its traditional network. A national team should be able to sell equipment, find a service provider, promote an experience or discover a new commercial partner.
The larger and more diverse the marketplace becomes, the more useful it can become for everyone.
And if we build this correctly, some of the economic activity generated by the largest participants in the sport can ultimately help strengthen the grassroots foundation underneath them.
That is a racing economy I would be proud to help build.
Racing Still Belongs to People
Technology will change. Cars, series, media and the way we buy things, find sponsors and discover businesses will continue to change with it. But I don't believe the heart of racing will.
It will still be the racer helping another racer unload. The dad working late in the shop. The promoter trying to make next week's purse a little better. The local business writing its first sponsorship check. The crew member helping somebody get back on track. The manufacturer solving a problem. The fan buying a shirt because they believe in a driver.
It will still depend on recommendations, reputations, handshakes and relationships.
RaceTeams.com is not being built to replace any of that. We're building it to give those people better tools.
Come Build It With Us
RaceTeams.com is still early in this journey, and I don't pretend that we have everything figured out.
There will be categories that need more listings, racing communities that need better representation, businesses we haven't met yet and parts of the industry we will learn how to serve better. I expect the people who actually live and work in racing every day will teach us plenty along the way.
That's part of what excites me about building this.
If you're a racer, team, track, series, promoter, manufacturer, supplier, service provider, sponsor, business or fan who believes racing deserves better commercial infrastructure, I hope you'll get behind what we're trying to build.
Shop with a racing business. List something another racer needs. Book a service. Find a partner. Introduce RaceTeams to your track or series. Tell somebody in the pits. Support the companies that support the sport.
Those individual actions are how a marketplace becomes a community, and how a community can become something much larger.
RaceTeams.com isn't being built around racing from the outside. It is being built from within the racing community, based on the same relationships and experiences that have kept this sport going for generations.
I hope you'll join us for the next lap.
Jesse Harris
Founder, RaceTeams.com