– MOTOR RACING IN FAVOUR FOR TRUCK MARKETERS
It seems that every day a story comes across our desk about a new motor racing sponsorship commitment by a truck manufacturer in Australia.
Fuso has long been the truck partner for the overall V8 Supercar category, although we hear that is about to change with another manufacturer taking up that opportunity.
None of the V8 teams seem to have had too much trouble sourcing prime movers to haul their increasingly large and unwieldy B Double transporters. with everyone from Kenilworth to Volvo and Western Star providing tow vehicles for some years now.
Freightliner changed the paradigm somewhat last year when it became the naming rights sponsor on the Brad Jones Racing Commodore, while the arrival of Roger Penske’s racing operation, following its earlier acquisition of the Western Star and MAN distributorships was another turning point.
Penske’s purchase of a controlling interest in Dick Johnson Racing has seen the US auto tycoon break his own long standing rule of generally not using his own brands to sponsor his race team. Normally Penske looks for other outside companies to back his racing business, utilising the team as a method of entertaining customers and experiential marketing. Better results may bring the Penske DJR racing operation more external sponsors in time.
Then last month Iveco announce it was expanding its racing sponsorships beyond the provision of prime movers to the 888 Red Bull Racing team. Iveco is this year also backing the 888 Caltex satellite team for Craig Lowndes while also contributing to the Maranello Motorsport Ferrari team in the Australian GT Championship.
T&TA has been invited to the unveiling of the new Freightliner Brad Jones Racing Commodore in Albury tomorrow and Daimler is also backing the V8 Development Series Brad Jones Racing entry for Andrew Jones, through its Alliance Truck Parts brand.
Alliance backed the Andrew Jones Commodore in the final two rounds of the 2015 series at Bathurst and Homebush where the standout livery attracted a lot of attention.
We are told that market search has given truck makers the message that many operators and truck buyers have a strong interest in motor racing which has led the move into increased backing of the sport to the point where it is now the fashion of the month and de rigeur for just about all truck makers.
