Champion seeks racing champion

Federal-Mogul will award $125,000 in racing sponsorships at the culmination of a new and expanded version of its popular ‘Search For A Champion’ contest. The competition is designed to connect the brand with a new generation of fans, amateur racers and ‘performance-driven’ consumers.

The contest is expected to attract hundreds of video entries, culminating in the awarding of $125,000 in Champion motorsports sponsorships for the 2013 racing season.

“‘Search for a Champion’ connected the latest leading-edge Champion technologies with millions of consumers, including a new generation of racers and performance enthusiasts. Based on the extraordinary success of this brand-building program, we are dramatically expanding its reach and the available sponsorship dollars to propel the Champion bow tie logo into the winner’s circle in virtually every form of engine-driven racing in 2013,” said Michael Proud, director of marketing, North America, Federal-Mogul.

The 2013 program was unveiled by NASCAR Sprint Cup driver and Champion spokesperson Kevin Harvick, who invited racers to develop and submit creative two-minute videos that describe how a Champion sponsorship would help them dominate the competition in 2013.

The program is open to any North American team competing in any engine-driven motor sport and in any competitive environment, including asphalt, dirt, off-road, snow, and water. Videos will be archived on the Champion brand’s www.AlwaysaChampion.com website, where consumers around the world will have the chance to vote for their favorites.

“This year’s contest drove a record number of consumers to our website, where they not only watched hundreds of great videos, but also learned how ‘Performance Driven’ Champion technologies help improve the performance and extend the service life of engines and other power equipment,” Proud said.

Racers can begin uploading their videos to the www.AlwaysaChampion.com website on Nov. 1, 2012. Consumer voting will begin in January, and the first round of sponsorship winners will be announced by Harvick in conjunction with the Daytona 500 in February 2013. Harvick and the Champion team will select a grand-prize $50,000 sponsorship winner in April.