Touring Series News
NASCAR: GTW's Coker Thrilled With Latitude 43 Sponsorship
AUSTIN, Texas -- Michael Coker, the President and CFO of GlobeTrack Wireless, Inc., wasn't sure what to expect when he signed on to sponsor a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series team. Just prior to last week's event at Pocono Raceway, Coker inked a deal with the new Latitude 43 Motorsports of Vermont.
The results, as far as Coker is concerned, were thrilling. Within one day of the announcement of the partnership last Wednesday, the Texas-based GPS manufacturer's website traffic had tripled. By the time the Pocono event was over on Sunday, traffic had increased eight-hundred percent. GTW was also overwhelmed with other sponsorship proposals almost immediately, even from the NASCAR sanctioning body itself.
"We are extremely excited with the amount of visibility we've already had, and it hasn't even been a week since we made the announcement," said Coker. "It was such a dramatic and positive result for the first weekend."
Coker was approached by Jenkins personally to join his NASCAR team.
"NASCAR is new for us. I went to a race once at Phoenix about thirteen years ago and that was it, so this is a completely new experience," Coker said. "But Bill and his entire team have been wonderful to work with, and
they made it a point to welcome us into the NASCAR family. Bill took the time to call me several times during the weekend at Pocono and update us on what was happening. I don't know of any other team owner that would do that."
Coker felt that NASCAR fans are the perfect market for GlobeTrack Wireless to demonstrate to; GTW specializes in GPS devices designed to track children, teenaged drivers, elderly Alzhimer's patients, family pets, and business fleets.
"We really started an aggressive marketing program this year, and we wanted to reach a large group of people that would be interested in our product. That's what NASCAR can offer us," Coker said. "We are going to be an active sponsor. We're going to travel with the team this year and be actively involved in marketing to fans in ways that make economical and practical sense. We'll be on the midway doing demonstrations and showing race fans how our products work."
Coker said a NASCAR partnership has been what GTW has been looking for. "NASCAR is so exciting and has great fans. Based on what we've already seen, we're anticipating nothing but positive results. I would recommend this type of experience to any business, and I'm just so thrilled we're a part of it."
PHOTOS:
1. David Stremme races the Air National Guard/GTW GPS Latitude 43 Motorsports #26 Ford down the Pocono fronstretch. (Photo by Geoff Burke/Getty Images for NASCAR)
2. The Latitude 43 Motorsports team makes a pit stop at Pocono. (Photo by John Harrelson/Getty Images for NASCAR)
