TRG-Aston Martin Racing wraps up partnership summit

TRG-Aston Martin Racing North America successfully completed the team’s inaugural Motorsports and Technology Partnership Summit in Silicon Valley presented by LaSalle Solutions. This summit brought together leaders from motorsports, media, current and prospective team partners, and some of the most influential tech companies in the Valley. The focus of the summit was to help educate, network, strengthen, and foster relationships between businesses and motorsport marketing/entertainment platforms like TRG-AMR.

From the engaging panel discussions to presentations and video demonstrations, attendees gained visibility to a wide range of new business opportunities. Afterwards, attendees were treated to an Aston Martin driving experience in a live autocross challenge pitted against their colleagues in GT4 racecars, followed by a memorable wine dinner on the terrace of the Mountain Winery. Sean Gibbons of SiriusXM was crowned the fastest around the coned track in the V8 Vantage GT4 racecar, but later disqualified due to his extensive racing experience (Sean, you sandbagger!).

This led to a finishing order of Yahoo! Executive Jeff Bonforte in third, software engineer Ain McKendrick in second, and Tech Executive Lars Rabbe in first, clenching the title as the Fastest Executive in the Valley! Chuck Ehrlich was named the Killer of Cones after completely decimating a number of cones throughout the course with the V8 Vantage GT4 racecar. This day was about fun and camaraderie, great people and the strong business opportunities for technology companies in the motorsports world - mission accomplished.

Second such summit

While this is the first west-coast based Summit focused on the convergence of technology and motorsport, the team’s first and previous Partnership Summit in November was hosted at the impressive NASCAR/IMSA headquarters building in Daytona Beach, Florida. Both Summits focused on leveraging connections and the incredible business opportunities afforded by involvement in racing at the highest levels and with one of the worlds best brands and most successful race teams.

The team is building on the momentum and positive response from the events, focusing on building a series of summits hosted around North America with enhanced panelists of speakers, more opportunities for technology integration, corporate marketing opportunities, networking and socializing, and an added element of fun and entertainment like the V8 Vantage GT4 autocross or behind-the-scenes tour of the $400 million renovation of Daytona International Speedway.

Said Kevin Buckler, CEO, TRG-AMR North America: “We were all so proud to be involved in this groundbreaking event. Hearing the buzz later that week in Long Beach from many of the other teams and series executives was very rewarding. We work so hard to stay on the leading edge of what is happening in our space in terms of innovative marketing concepts and amazing relationship building opportunities. Sportscar racing is hot right now and definitely a viable and even more effective tool in Corporate America’s arsenal than many of the things they are utilizing now. This was an amazing group of people who took the time to explain how they are using the sports car racing platform as an extremely effective tool for their corporate and individual needs. I was proud of everybody involved and also want to say thank you. We can’t wait for the North American Partnership Summit Series to kick into full swing and will be announcing our next two events in the coming weeks.”

TRG