An unrealistic dream

The racing offseason is funny, because every single press release you read is littered with unfiltered optimism, unbridled enthusiasm and an unnecessary amount of spin. That’s what they’re for – to give the impression that driver X, Y or Z is going to “deliver a championship by the pursuit of great race results and maximum exposure and return on investment for sponsors.” Or something of that ilk.

You can’t fault teams, drivers, sponsors or the PR reps for putting together releases in that way. That’s their job. But just once, I’d like to see someone rebel – the closest to irreverent, off-the-cuff releases come from Magnus Racing (which, unsurprisingly, represent the press releases I actually WANT to read instead of slog through thinking how I can rewrite it into a news story) – and create a press release that more accurately describes how driver X got the ride.

This is mostly tongue-in-cheek, but here’s what I’d like to see, just once, in a driver/team announcement press release:

Driver Y brings fattest check, gets seat at Team X

“Well, Team X is announcing Driver Y because frankly, he/she brought the biggest check. It’s not easy to hold back the fact we wanted to announce Driver Z, because he/she actually has the most talent, but we can’t afford to pay him/her and they didn’t want to take a pay cut. Which, to be honest, is totally understandable. Why should drivers have to pay for the privilege of driving when talent should be the ultimate judge of who gets a seat and who doesn’t?

Anyway, that aside, we’re more than happy to take Driver Y’s check, and we really hope that with the right amount of coaching, development, engineering assistance and a little bit of luck, that he/she will be more than a bottom feeder just taking up space and blocking Driver Z, who will probably be lapping them as of lap 7.

We feel Driver Y has the potential to grow – because he/she is woefully out of depth for this series and is only here because of the check they bring. But we anticipate that they will do a great job shilling for the sponsor they bring, will engage their clients (I mean, because who doesn’t know Pay By Touch, Grafiprint or 42 Below?) and maybe, just maybe, will get noticed by one media type who pays attention to his/her development over the course of the season.

“I’m really ecstatic that Team X took my check,” Driver Y said. “When you’re negotiating with teams, certain teams want you to bring a certain amount of money, some greater than others. But I feel that working together, with my check and this team’s potential to improve, we can deliver some results that won’t embarrass either of us.”

“Driver Y doesn’t have the talent of a Driver Z, but he/she does have the potential to grow, and we know Driver Y can do so as long as they keep filling our pockets so we can go racing,” Team X owner said. “We’re not going to be championship contenders. We’ll be lucky to score a top-five. But we know we can end the year better than we are starting, because we’re starting from a place that no one wants to be – stone last with a talentless paydriver. It’s one thing to have a paydriver with talent, but we’re not at that stage yet. We hope that with Driver Y’s improvement this year, we can manage to hire a paydriver with talent next year in a second car.”

We know you’re probably unlikely to read this, but we hope our honesty in our team’s approach continues to entice you going forward. Thanks for slogging along through this press release, and we are kindly available for any media inquiries.