A company can benefit from motorsports sponsorship in many ways, such as:

1. Driving Sales

Sponsorship geared towards driving sales can be an extremely effective promotional tool. Many successful companies use motorsports sponsorship to stimulate consumer interest, which in turn, generates sales. Sponsorship also drives traffic to their web sites and increases online purchasing. This contributes to a significant rise in overall sales volume as well.

2. Heightening Visibility and Creating Positive Publicity

Motorsports sponsorship provides wide exposure in broadcast, print and electronic media. This exposure creates positive publicity and heightens visibility of your company’s products and services. The various media covering a racing event usually include sponsor names and/or photos. Additionally, the media coverage you often receive as a sponsor would prove too expensive if purchased outright, assuming it was even available. Motorsports sponsorship often generates publicity that could not have been bought.

3. Enhancing Image and Shaping Consumer Attitudes

Companies are often looking to improve how they are perceived by a particular audience. One way of achieving this goal is by becoming affiliated with well-liked sports personalities. Professional auto racing is the largest spectator sport in the world and reaches a consumer market that crosses all boundaries of age, race and gender. Sponsoring a racing driver is an excellent way to shape the buying attitudes of this vast demographic and will help to generate a positive reaction towards your company and its products and services.

4. Differentiating from Competitors

The mere act of sponsoring a racing driver or team, especially an exclusive sponsorship, is a significant way to create competitor differentiation. Your company name can stand out head and shoulders above the competition. Motorsports sponsorship is a powerful weapon against a competitor with a larger advertising budget. Sponsorship allows smaller companies to compete with their industry giants and consumers often perceive sponsorship in a positive way. Using sponsorship can give you a decided edge over your competition.

5. Enhancing Business, Consumer and Employee Relations

Sponsorships that offer hospitality allow companies the chance to entertain key customers and solidify business relationships. Using sponsorship in connection with a consumer rewards program increases goodwill and customer retention. Companies that use motorsports sponsorship as part of their employee reward and incentive programs experience increased productivity. Treating employees to a fun day of racing excitement is an excellent way to boost morale and to thank them for their hard work.

Summary

Motorsports sponsorship is a powerful, cost-effective marketing opportunity. The enormous international appeal of auto racing, combined with careful planning, can elevate your company to new heights of success.

Forza Motorsport 2 features over 300 cars divided into six production classes and four race classes. Graphics and aerodynamics of the cars can be visually customizable. The game runs at the speed of 60 frames per second while replays at 30 frames per second. No point to point race is featured in this version of the series. The game focuses on circuit race only. The physique is refurbished from the Forza Motorsport. There are multiple settings possible in the game now. “Simulation” the severest, takes car out of commission, “limited” limits the relentless crashes and damages, and “cosmetic” means damages are not visible.

Forza Motorsport 2 features 14 playable tracks out of which 10 are real-world tracks and remaining four are fictional tracks. The scoring system of the game is similar to that of Halo 2. Cars can be auctioned online and purchased cars come with all the new and old stats. Players need to logon to the official website to check for the scores. Game allows players to take in-game photos and upload them to the forza website. Players can also schedule tournaments in the game. Microsoft has developed Xbox 360 Wireless racing wheel that works in conjunction with the game.

Lot of Forza Motorsport 2 free downloadable content is available. Players can download free cars and tracks along with the paid one. There is also one limited collector’s edition released. The limited collector’s edition contains 157 pages booklet giving the details about the cars and how to obtain the game achievements. Limited Collector’s Edition wasn’t available in United States while it was available in rest of the world. Many bugs had been detected and removed in online multiplayer mode. Below is a link to F

Forza 3 assists are available to all drivers. The game maker recommends that all players use the assist as it will keep the game competitive for all skill levels. You may net a lower amount of winnings but it will get you started out in the world of Forza 3 racing. The assist work as follows. Placing in a race earn you x amount of money. For each assist you have enabled it will cost you a certain percentage of your winnings. As you begin to get more comfortable with your car and the tracks you can disable more assist which will allow you to net more of the winnings.

Many players assume that they can race with 100% of the assists off. This is an unwise idea for even the most experienced racer. In order to maximize the funds you make you will want to enable only those assists that will earn you back the most money without losing control of your car. Using assist to win the most races and net the biggest winnings is the goal of most Forza 3 players. If you are interested in using the assists but are cautious at any loses you might be taking consider settings such as simulation when it comes to Damage, Fuel, Tire Wear. If your car sustains damage you are most likely going to restart the race so setting it to limited and finishing the race won’t net you nearly as much money.

Another feature that allows you to net the most winnings is enabling the difficulty setting to hard. You must be experienced because this level is not for those of us who play loose. When winning in this mode you are basically getting an extra 15% bonus to your cash winnings.

The rewind assist feature is brand new for Forza Motorsport 3. This assist allows you to back the race up in five second increments so that you can replay that moment in time. This Forza Motorsport 3 tool can be used as much as needed without penalty. This is a great tool to use when experimenting on a new course especially if you find yourself hitting a wall or taking a corner too aggressively. Who doesn’t want to turn back time when they fail to do something right the first time? Use caution though because players have reported that near the end of a race when they need the rewind function most it has been unable to work.

Forza Motorsport 3 is an optimal racing game for all levels. Assists make it possible for even the newest player to race against the most personalized cars and experienced drivers. Winning the race while losing a

The cluster consists of engine builders, precision engineers and electronics specialists. But there is also a huge skills overlap which takes the business activity of HPE companies into the field of servicing for the automotive, aerospace, electronics, material technology, watersports and medical technologies sectors.

Motorsport Industry

UK teams, engineering firms and supporting services have been a major global force in motorsport for many years now. In the UK, motorsport manufacturing is concentrated in a cluster that includes the East Midlands, Northamptonshire in particular. Here, we boast major venues for racing and testing vehicles:

Silverstone, the internationally renowned, world-class venue for motorsport events home of the British F1 Grand Prix and British Motorcycle Grand Prix
Rockingham, the only ‘oval’ motorsport circuit in the UK
Santa Pod, the UK’s premier drag racing strip
MIRA, renowned as a leading design, testing and certification organisation that provides engineering expertise and advanced testing facilities across the entire range of transport technologies
With such resources on hand it is easy to see why 200 plus major motorsport companies, employing 6,000 people with an annual turnover of £0.6 billion, have made their base in the East Midlands. In addition, the region is home to:
Internationally recognised engine builders including Cosworth, Ilmor Engineering, Mahle Powertrain and Mercedes-Benz High Performance Engines
A significant share of the international motorsport supply chain, (including expertise in composites and precision engineering)
F1 constructors Mercedes F1 and Force India
The National College of Motorsport
A partnership of three further education colleges based in the heart of Motorsport Valley, this was the first vocational centre for motorsport and performance engineering to tackle the decline and shortage of craft technicians’ skills within the motors

Motorsport is no exception to the rule; China is learning but is learning fast, really fast. Europe has had a racing culture for much longer, people have enjoyed going to events for years with their family, people have driven cars for over 100 years, but it seems that slowly, the western world is not what is used to be for motorsport, it is sort of stagnating while China is leveraging on motorsport more and more through the involvement of car manufacturers, race teams, promoters.

China is catching up, motorsport is booming. It is impressive to see so many events of international standard coming to China one by one over the years, not all successful right away but all trying their best to succeed: FIA GT, F1, MotoGP, V8, DTM, Le Mans, WTCC. The age of China begging to get events is over. I remember a few years back, as I was working at Zhuhai international Circuit, we had the visit of an American promoter who wanted to discuss a historic F1 event to take place in ZIC. As much as we welcomed his ideas and his vision, and were open to listen to his offer, he had not yet realized that Chinese Motorsport Companies were now in a position to negotiate, partner with series and championships rather than just buy events at any cost. So when he offered for us to purchase the rights to his event for a few million dollars, the deal was off immediately.

And by this simple anecdote, I just want to show that China’s motorsport market has already moved to a different level over the past few years. It took time from the first Hong Kong Beijing Rally, the first GT race downtown Zhuhai, the first F1 Race in Shanghai, to put China motorsport on the map of international motorsport but if we look now, in 2011, what events come to China, what deals are made, what partnerships are signed and the level of sponsorship and involvement of all the partners, teams and federations, it is a completely different scene than the one in the 1990′s, at the start of China motorsport.

Obviously, all is not perfect and a few things have to improve. When an industry grows fast, the foundations can be rocked. I would say that one of the key things to improve is the relationship between all the actors of the industry: promoters, circuits, teams, federations, sponsors, it could often be smoother and healthier. Most parties are passionate about this sport, which is great and necessary, but often, business priorities wildly take over. At times, the struggles that take place amongst the actors seem unnecessary: who will promote what, who will organize what. But it is also part of any growing business community, we all want a piece of the cake and it is no different in China motorsport, actually maybe it is even more obvious because of the glamorous image of motorsport and the strong media coverage. But let’s not forget that we all have a responsibility towards the sport we love, the image we give of it is what people will remember. Small to big operators all contribute to that image. The best we do for China’s motorsport future, the more business will flow back to the community.

2011 is going to be another impressive year with new events and a super busy month of November in South China with WTCC in GIC and Intercontinental Le Mans Cup in Zhuhai for the final round, followed by the world renowned Macau Grand Prix. 2011 is also: news circuits, new teams, new Chinese drivers on the local and foreign scenes, and more foreign businesses looking to invest in our sport, let’s look forward to it and make it grow together.

Benjamin Grenon has lived in China for the past 7 years. He is Managing Director of SpeedShare