Piedmont, SC’s Andy Kelley, a nitro Funny Car driver on the IHRA tour, decided to get a little creative in his mission to secure sponsorship for the last race of 2007 and possibly beyond. While exploring all the standard avenues, Kelley and his marketing team listed a one-race sponsorship on eBay that would allow the high bidder primary signage on Kelley’s Firebird for this weekend’s World Finals. Unfortunately, no one reached the auction’s reserve price or opted for the $10,000 “buy it now” option before the auction ended.

“We had a good bit of response from it, but to be honest, I think a lot of people thought it was a joke,” said Kelley. “This is the real deal though. We are out here running well and we are fourth in the points. We’re going for this thing.”

Though their eBay venture didn’t quite work out as planned, the Kelley team admitted they aren’t scared to “experiment in public” and plan to try it again.

“There’s definitely some potential that came out of it,” Kelley said. “We’re on eBay buying and selling all the time, and we’re going to give it another try. We had a couple different people interested, so hopefully something will come of it.”

“The IHRA Nitro Jam series offers access to a very specific and desirable demographic, and it’s a very reasonable way for a company to promote its products or services,” added Kelley Motorsports Marketing Consultant Paul Constantine.  “Andy had this idea a couple of weeks ago and after debating the pros and cons we decided to run with it.”

“This is a good program over here at IHRA,” said Kelley. “Evan Knoll is putting up great money for this deal, and it’s the best bang for the buck in my opinion. These spectators can get hands-on over here. They can come up and touch my car if they want to. We want to be out here full time next year, but we can’t if we don’t secure some backing.”

“We’ll be at the first race for sure, but we don’t know beyond that right now,” said Kelley.