Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Intro.
[00:00:06] Mark Boudreau: You're listening to the Motorsport Prospects podcast.
Hey, it's Mark from Motorsport Prospects and welcome to the Motorsport Prospects podcast. This is where we dive into the world of motorsport with the people who live and breathe it. From driver coaches and sponsorship experts, to team owners, pro drivers and more. You'll hear real stories, practical advice and insights you can actually use, whether you're just starting out or already chasing success on the track.
Now you listen to this podcast, you know that the main reason I founded Motorsport Prospects is over the issue of trust. So many people have asked me who do I trust. They just have no idea whether they be starting in racing, whether they're experienced professionals that want to race Porsches or Ferraris or whatever it is.
They struggle to find reliable guidance. So I created Motorsport Prospects basically to help people make informed decisions. The professionals that I feature on this podcast represent that trust. These are the professionals that you should be working with. So if you work with drivers or racing teams, building trust is one of the most important things you can do. Over the years I found that being clear about what you offer, following through on your promises, and genuinely caring about your clients goals makes all the difference. So what I've done is I put a put a couple of things together in a free white paper called the three Essentials for Motorsport Business Owners. It just shares simple ways to strengthen relationships, attract the right clients and grow your your motorsport business. Naturally you can find it in the show. Notes are always@motorsport prospects.com so with that out of the way, I'd like to start off today with my guest who is Mick Gomm. Mick is the Managing Director at GO Motorsport Management where he focuses on developing driver talent and enabling them to achieve their full potential. He works on establishing and managing his clients careers as a professional driver, both on the track and commercially. Welcome to the Motorsport Prospects podcast. Mick, thanks so much for taking the time out to speak with me.
[00:02:19] Mick Gomme: Great to be here.
[00:02:21] Mark Boudreau: Now when we initially tried to get together, you are a busy, busy man in motorsport. So I really do appreciate taking the time.
Mick, you have extensive experience.
I don't have to go into that. But based on that experience, what would be the one most important piece of advice you could offer a current or aspiring race driver?
[00:02:46] Mick Gomme: I think I have sort of two answers to that. The first one, the main one is have a plan. And I'm sure that's been said before, but it's vitally important to have a plan. You know, I speak to so many drivers and parents that go into it quite blind, they end up Wasting an absolute fortune because they don't have a plan. And they end up doing this series, that series, that series, that series.
And at the end of it they're still stood in the same position wondering what do we do next? You know, and the analogy I like to use is if you were going to go and climb Mount Everest, you wouldn't turn up at the bottom without a plan.
That's what we're trying to do, you know, so have a plan in place because I'm already planning next year and the following year already for my drivers. In my mind, even though we've only just started this season, in my mind it's where are we going next? I'm already putting things into position, ready for that. As long as everything goes to plan.
Because otherwise, you know, at the end of this season, I don't want any of my drivers to be stood there saying, right, what should we do now? Whatever we do, there has to be a reason for it and it has to achieve something. Once we've done that season, we've achieved that part of the goal and we move on to the next part of the plan.
Otherwise you going to waste a ton of money just in and out of different series that hasn't, hasn't done anything for you.
[00:04:13] Mark Boudreau: And, and that's a really good point because everybody talks about how expensive motorsport is and we all know that is in fact the case.
So if you want to, I always say, get the biggest bang for the buck, maximize your dollar, you know, increase your chances as, as getting a career in motorsport.
Yeah, I, I would think that makes a lot of sense to have a plan.
It surprises me with the amount of money on the line that so many people don't have any kind of a plan.
[00:04:45] Mick Gomme: Yeah. And you know, like a lot of them are first generation races so their families don't really, they don't know what they don't know and they only get told stuff by people that want them in their team for a reason or in their series for certain reason. It's not necessarily the best series for their child or young driver to go into.
You know, all of these teams are running a business so they want to fill their seats, but they've got the ear of the, of the parents that are paying the bill, you know, so they do need to seek professional advice if, if they're first generation racers. Otherwise they are going to spend a lot of money, you know, and it's like most of the young kids that come out of karting, their aspirations are Formula one, you know, and that's fine. But I normally tell them how much they're going to need to get to Formula One. You know, the odds are against it, but it's not impossible. But you're going to need a ton of money to get to the point where you're ready to get into a Formula One car. And most of them don't have that, you know, and the other thing they seem to do is they'll do formula cars, which is fine. You learn a lot in formula cars and they keep trying to go up the ladder, you know, and every step they take, the budget doubles, you know, and they'll get to a point where they've run out of money or they don't have enough money and they'll come back and go GT cars. Whereas I try to work that out at the very beginning so that we don't waste all that money and then come back to where we should have started in the first place. You know, I'm not deterring people to try and go to Formula One, but if you don't have the budget, you're going to waste whatever money you have got trying to get to somewhere where that's not doable.
[00:06:27] Mark Boudreau: Yeah. And that makes sense for young drivers. And we were talking before we recorded, that also applies in a lot of ways, certainly, as far as a plan goes to the independent, or as they call them, gentlemen drivers, for sure.
[00:06:42] Mick Gomme: Yeah. You know, and a lot of these guys, they've made their money, they've retired early and they want to go and have fun.
And it's the same for them. They don't know what they don't know. They might be incredible businessmen, but motorsport's a different story, you know, and if you can just burn so much money by doing the wrong things, you know, you need to be getting value for money. You need to be getting the right team that's going to look after you, not just any team. Do you want to buy your own car? Do you want to go and rent a seat? All of those things they don't know, you know, so it's the same for them. As I said to you before, I look after gentlemen drivers and young drivers and I treat them all the same.
Just looking after the money, really, and making sure they get the biggest bang for their buck and moves their career forward. You know, some gentleman drivers just want to have fun. They don't want to go too far, they just want to have fun. But it's the same. You still need to be looking after your money. But other gentlemen drivers, they do Want to go up, they want to go and do Le Mans or Weck or something like that.
So we still have to create a path for those as well as you would a young driver.
[00:07:50] Mark Boudreau: So that perfectly leads me into go motorsport management.
Tell me a little bit about go, what you do and how that all works out.
[00:08:02] Mick Gomme: Well, I started it over 10 years ago. I left. I left Formula One after doing about 15 years on the race team and then I worked for couple of teams in the UK setting up Formula 4 and Formula 3 teams, and I kept getting approached by drivers. Can you manage me? Can you manage me?
And I sat and thought about it and I thought, I'm going to do it, actually. So I started my own Management Company 10 years ago with young drivers mainly, and along the way you meet gentlemen drivers. When I've been traveling in America and stuff, you bump into people and it's just grown from there, really.
I don't tend to want to manage 20 drivers, it's too many. I normally stick to around 10 as a maximum, because I tried. I like to try and be at every test and every race for all of my drivers, and that's quite a lot of traveling. But I like to be there. I want to know what's going on. I want to know if they're prepared properly, are the team doing the right job?
I want to know what damage there is because I like to look for all the invoices before. I'll say, yeah, that's fine to pay it, you know, so it's.
I'm a lot more immersed into it than some.
And going to every race and every test for every driver is a lot if they're all in different series. So it is quite busy. But it's my life. I love motorsport and when I'm not away racing with my drivers, I'll end up watching it on the TV.
It's like last weekend, the Indy 500, fantastic race. And you're not going to miss that. I was actually at a race at Alton Park, a GT race, but I watched it in my room on my iPad, you know, So I am a bit of a motorsports nut, but it helps with. With what I do. If you love it. If you love what you do, you're not working, are you, really? You know, so.
So I'm. I've been into motorsports my whole life and. And it just continues.
[00:10:00] Mark Boudreau: Yeah, No, I mean, I. I mean, I was watching the Indy five. I was at the Canadian Grand Prix. I was watching it on my phone.
[00:10:08] Mick Gomme: Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's funny because I had, I have my laptop and my iPad, so I had the Canadian Grand Prix on one, the Indy 500 was just finishing on the other. And I'd also just had the British Touring car race on the TV as well. So I had like three things going on in between what I was doing at the circuits as well.
[00:10:26] Mark Boudreau: Now I know why it was so hard to. To arrange a time to. To meet you.
So if anybody wants to find out about GO motorsport management and contact you, where would they go?
[00:10:40] Mick Gomme: On my website. Go on my website. It's got the phone numbers, got email address. We're on all the social media platforms as well.
Yeah, just contact me there. I'm easy to get hold of and everybody knows me in the paddock, so they can point you my way as well.
[00:10:55] Mark Boudreau: And I will of course post that the website link on in the show notes.
Before I let you go, Mick, I just have to ask the question of favorite racetrack, current or historical?
[00:11:08] Mick Gomme: I think it has to be Spa for quite a lot of reasons, really where it is. It's a beautiful place in the Ardennes. The, the weather there is so different. It can be scorching hot at one end, pelting the rain at the other end.
The way the circuit is up and down and it's a real driver's circuit and it will bite you if you don't respect it. And it's good for all sorts of racing, you know, from. From GT to Formula one to historics.
It's just a fantastic circuit. And I think if you ask a lot of drivers, Spa will be one of their favorite circuits because of those reasons.
[00:11:48] Mark Boudreau: Yeah, I mean, for everybody that I've interviewed, it's definitely in the top three of answers that people have given in Spa. What amaz me as well, there were two things is that the elevation changes get flattened out on tv. It really is not as obvious as what you. As what it really is. And the other thing that amazes me, if anybody who's listening has only watched the Belgian Grand Prix, go and watch either Sport. Like the 24 Hours of Spa, where it's pitch black. I cannot get over that. I mean, it is. It's a phenomenal track and old school, for sure.
[00:12:29] Mick Gomme: Yeah. You know, and it's. It's sort of a small version of Nurburgring. If you watch the 24 hours of Nurburgring, pitch black, changing weather conditions, I mean, TV doesn't do that justice, you know, that is one awesome race. The Nurburgr 24 hours. You know, I'm sure you watched it.
[00:12:47] Mark Boudreau: Oh, yeah.
[00:12:48] Mick Gomme: The difference with that one is as well, you've got some such different closing speeds with GT3s to GT4s and below that, you know, it's, it's a crazy race. I mean, I mean, that's getting away from the original question, but Spa is very similar. At the spa, 24 hours, pitch black, up and down, different weather. You know, that's another great race, which is coming up very soon, actually.
[00:13:12] Mark Boudreau: It is. I'm very much looking forward to it. Well, Nick, I really appreciate you taking the time to speak with me.
Really great advice and I follow you, I believe on LinkedIn your socials. For anybody listening, I highly recommend that you subscribe, follow all that kind of stuff because you do really point out some pretty significant information that's very helpful, very actionable for race drivers. So I definitely recommend anybody listening to check that out. Everything will be posted in the show notes. Mick, thanks so much for taking the time out to spend with me. Really appreciate it. Thank you. So that's it for this week. This is Mark from Motorsport Prospects reminding you to stay fast, stay focused and keep chasing that checkered flag.
Thanks for listening to the Motorsport Prospects podcast. For insights, advice and the latest news racers can use, visit Motorsport Prospects.com.
