Why are racers bad at self promotion?

Some may say the title of this article is wrong, some may agree. Maybe it is just that racers have no problem promoting themselves the way they feel is to their advantage? But when they have an opportunity to be one of the features in a magazine and they don't come through I feel they are failing themselves and their partners.

A prime example was early last year when I shot a one of a kind race car at the Michelin Raceway at Road Atlanta. I had all the photos required to create an impressive feature for MotorWerks Magazine. All I needed was the technical spec and a bit of a bio to finish it off. I try not to get this info during a race weekend as the racer normally has more than enough on his plate. In this case I was nearing publication time and after eight months still did not have the info.

So what to do? The solution was found on Facebook, when I saw Phil R?theli post a couple of cool photos of his reworked Time Attack Mitsubishi EVO.

A message to Phil in Switzerland brought a swift reply in the affirmative and he was game for his lime green monster being featured. He hooked me up with his photographer, Images by Geatan and I starting laying our the feature. Very quickly he got me the copy, allowing me to edit his story and voila a week before the PRI show in Indy we went online with the latest issue.

So there is the story of two racers, the first had a great opportunity and did not grab it with both hands, the other stepped up to the plate and knocked it out of the ballpark. Unfortunately the experience with the first racer tends to be more common than the second. Now as far as promotion, Phil's sponsors were over the moon as I could see by their Facebook thumbs ups! Good job Phil, thanks for stepping in and helping us out.

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