Florida racing series boosts dealers’ buzz, bottom line

Tampa-area dealerships are sponsoring a local amateur MX racing series

Among the vast number of different ways dealerships can use marketing to grow their customer base, rider sponsorship is closer to being a dinosaur than a robot. 

But the Tampa MX Top Gun Dealer Cup, an amateur motocross racing series sponsored by local dealerships, has flipped the script of rider sponsorship.

The series runs from April to October, with all races taking place at Tampa MX racetrack. It hosts a wide range of age and engine classes, from 50cc bikes to 250cc. With an average of 300 entrants in its inaugural season, the racing series is the top amateur racing circuit in Florida in terms of participation, according to founder Mike Floyd. 

Where the Tampa MX Dealer Cup takes an unconventional approach is in how the sponsorship works. Rather than dealerships seeking out specific riders to support or becoming a sponsor of the overall series, riders pick the dealership they want to ride for when they sign up at the beginning of the series. Dealerships then pay for their riders’ entry fees. In addition to stickers that riders are required to have on their bikes, the dealerships also receive their racers’ contact information in order to develop a relationship.

For Floyd, the owner of Tampa MX racetrack, it was all about cultivating a strong motocross community between the racetrack and nearby dealerships. 

“It works well for everyone, it works for us as a racetrack and the racers are appreciative of the sponsorships, so the dealers are pulling the people back to them,” Floyd said. 

The ultimate goal for the sponsoring dealerships is to generate door swings and divert business from online retailers. The connection that’s made through the sponsorship gives dealerships an inroad to connect with riders, understand their needs as a consumer and work to fill them.

“We’ve seen some sales decline over the years with the suspicion that we’re losing sales to online businesses, so this was an opportunity for us to go out to the track, and being focused around dealers, it helped us start a conversation and reach out to people you probably would have no other way of connecting with,” said Todd Hempstead, the Dealer Principal for Barney’s of Brandon Motorcycle and Marine, which sponsored around 100 riders last year.

Instead of a passive marketing strategy such as having banners or a tent setup at the track, the dealership-sponsored racing provides a more direct way to connect with riders. For Hans Klockes, the general manager of series sponsor Xtreme Powersports of Tampa, the sponsorship fees have proved to be a more effective use of their marketing dollars. 

“I was going to invest in sponsorship to help the track out anyway, but this is a different way to get people involved,” Klockes said. “The money that racers save is money they could spend with us. Riders appreciate it and come back to the store more often.”

Just as the Tampa MX Top Gun Dealer Cup isn’t a typical marketing strategy, their riders don’t fit the mold of those who would typically warrant conventional sponsorship. Many of the participants in the series are less experienced motocross riders.

“What we’re trying to do is to get new people who are not regulars in there. We want the older guys or new kids to get involved with it because let’s face it, once you get racing you’re hooked,” Klockes added. 

Even as Barney’s won the overall series as the dealership with the top cumulative point totals last year, Hempstead said that his focus is not on winning. It’s about the rider experience, and sowing the seed for these riders to become lifelong powersports enthusiasts.

“If you help them to have a great experience and it creates a future rider, then hopefully in the future they think about us,” Hempstead said. “Young dirt bike riders are generally speaking your next street riders, and future consumers of a lot of the other products, so if we don’t continue to create dirt riders, the future for our other products may be a bit in question.” 

He’s not just interested in potential future customers, however. For the second year of the Dealers Cup Series, Hempstead plans to organize their team before the season in order to offer discounted gear packages, and clearer incentives for riders to buy from Barney’s.

For 2018, the series has been reduced to six races from eight. But Floyd expects it to grow, in terms of both riders and sponsors. He’s already added two additional dealership sponsors for this season, and hopes to have 10 total before racing begins. 

When he bought the racetrack four years ago, Floyd wanted to establish a mutually beneficial relationship with the many area dealerships. While the Tampa MX Top Gun Dealer Cup Series hit some speed bumps in its first year, both the dealerships and racetrack have reaped benefits from the unique series. 

“The way our industry has changed so much, it takes these outside the box ideas to change the game,” Floyd said. “We’re very fortunate in our market that the dealers have taken notice that we must do something different.”