And you do what you do as a 13-year-old, you immediately look at what is the most exorbitant thing you can buy.
How much money are we talking about here?
I think it was $3,050, or $3,000.
This is not a miniature amount of money.
I went to the top of the list that had his and hers watches and what came out of my mouth was, what does a 13-year-old want from some very nice Cartier watches?
Then I went back to the Long Beach Grand Prix in 1987 with my high school friend, met Mario Andretti and was very intimidated. Now I wanted to kind of get into racing and I asked him, “How do you get started?” He said, “Karting.”
When you say karting, do you mean karting?
Go-karts, yes. It’s a little league, if you will, although it’s very grave. And I thought, “Oh, I know how I can pay for this. I have some watches in my drawer that I think I can take to the Van Nuys pawn shop.” I went and sold them and got some cash.
They never asked me, “Why do you have these watches?” Today they probably wouldn’t pass a KYC test at a pawn shop. I sold them, bought a go-kart and that’s how it started.
And your parents asked, “Yes, sell these watches, buy a go-kart?”
No, I’m not sure I passed that idea on to them. These were my watches.
Independent teenager.
Exactly. Yes, I was definitely a very independent teenager.
But that’s where your career as a driver began.
Yes, for 10 years. I was successful in karting, so I wanted to pursue my dream of Formula 1. It requires sponsorship. My family wasn’t able to support me very much, especially by racing standards. My mother gave me her salary for a year, which was enough for me to move to England, which was very nice of her. But it’s not enough to go beyond that. But she was a travel agent and still is a travel agent. She knew someone at TWA who liked racing, so they gave me plane tickets, which I then traded and sold, and that’s how I started working in the sponsorship industry.
This is a rush.
I would go to companies and say, “Give me 50 grand for the races and not only will I put your logo on my race car and you can get some hospitality, but I’ll also give you 50 grand in plane tickets.”
It was like, “That’s a good deal.” That’s how I started. After that, I became obsessed with both my racing career and the need for sponsorship. So I started calling everyone and just trying to understand how does this all work? I still carry it with me to this day.
You ran a mini-enterprise. I mean, you ran your own business.
I raced for 10 years and when I stopped racing everyone was like, “Hey, you’re really good at sponsorships.” I ended up building the largest motorsports agency in the world. I cared about the corporate side of the sport – the sponsors – because I felt like no one was advising them. They have a lot of energy in this sport. They are money. So I thought, “Hey, I can get you some great deals here.” I had confidence in my understanding of the sport, having been a racing driver.