Anybody here sponsored?

[Sol's Eye]

I was just wondering how it worked. I am starting to see ads and stuff for sponsorship opportunities, and I just kind of want to get the 411 on it. If anyone here is sponsored and can kind of tell me how everything works, or can at least point me to some information, that would be great. Thanks!

[silver]

there are several different levels of sponsorship.
there are partial sponsorships. where the company will reimburse you a certain percentage of the amount that you paid for the products. These usually happen if you win a few shows or are well known. It it always works in the order that you buy it first, then they pay you back. Occasionally you can get it the other way around, but your car had better have something unique about it.

Full sponsorships can go either way as well. First off they normally are looking for a specific type of vehicle or something rare. Then they will give you their product for free as long as you allow them to use your car for shows and promotions. Your vehicle may be gone for a year on the road, and that whole time you won't see it, but that is the tradeoff.

For example, this past summer I toyed with the idea of doing a massive hybrid SR20/QR25 thingy with my car. K&N engineering offered to pay all of my entry fees to shows as long as I had a k&N filter and stickers on my car. A local shop also offered to sponsor my interior and exterior, meaning seats, kit, gauges, and all that stuff. But I still had to pay for the motor work, which was estimated at $12,000, so I decided otherwise.

It's not all it's cracked up to be unless you have a seperate daily driver and are real serious.