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Q: We understand that EZY Racing is setting up operations overseas. Can you enlighten us on this?
A: When we first set foot into motor racing in 2010, we saw a great potential to uplift the motor sport in the country and provide the due glamour this sport deserves. Over the last five years we have channelled our efforts predominantly into three key areas. The first area we focused on was the building of a quality motor racing team who have been able to perform consistently in the local motor racing arena thereby entertaining millions of racing enthusiasts across the country.
The second major area we focused on was operating the business as a professional sports outfit where we focused on signing partners, together with whom we have been able to translate our success in the racing circuits into the core business areas of our partners. Given that motor racing drivers have been finding it difficult to sustain sponsorships as they have very limited abilities of providing returns to sponsors other than displaying the branding on their cars, focusing on three major areas, the team concept of motor racing we introduced helped us attract, recruit and retain partnerships by providing professional business returns without being dependent on track performances. As a result most partners have been able to relate to the sport and align their internal organisations to their affiliation with motor sports.
The third key area we focused on was on making EZY Racing a reputed brand. This exercise has been an ongoing process and has given us a great deal of success as far as creating a good followership and recognition for the brand EZY Racing. Today we are fortunate to be followed by over 50,000 fans from different parts of the country to whom we have gradually offered many lifestyle products that were tested by EZY Racing at different stages.
Our success primarily has stemmed from the fact that we operate our motor racing entity no different to how we operate the rest of our businesses. If you closely observe, other than our lubricant partner Mobil, our partners have primarily been non motor related brands, which is rarely seen in local motor racing. Additionally, all our partners are internationally acclaimed brands, which has today given us a great deal of awareness in the other countries these brands are present in. This proves that we have been able to demonstrate our business proposition in an impeccable manner to partners who have lived to reap the benefits of the partnership, through the contracted period. It is this that has today made us a brand that has been able to socially connect with the masses.
Whilst being engaged in motor racing we have in parallel been working on different areas of developing the sport and propagating it amongst youngsters. We call this the ‘Racing Is My Passion’ program, where we focus on different aspects such as karting, skills drives, amateur rally contests, etc to instil the passion of motor sports amongst the public. The fact that these programs have been a major success every time we have conducted them, inspired us to explore the possibilities of introducing these in the neighbouring countries as EZY Racing’s social interaction model, which would help us in turn to establish the brand EZY Racing in new geographies. So with this we will begin our overseas operations and are hopeful that they will provide us with similar success.
Q: What made EZY racing venture overseas?
A: If you look at motor racing as a sport, it has an inherited attribute of being able to attract an audience instantly. This has been one of the reasons we have been able to attract newer audiences and followership to our brand EZY Racing from different geographies in Sri Lanka. I strongly believe that over the last five years, motor racing has developed to become the country’s second most viewed sport. My thought process is based upon the fact that we have close to 15 races in a given calendar year that are contested in different parts of the country, which provides a broader audience and followership. If we take the average crowd who comes to watch a race, it easily exceeds 50,000. That’s double the amount of people we can put in to the Premadasa Stadium to watch a cricket match. Added to this, almost all the races are telecast live to over a million viewers, which makes motor racing probably the only sport other than cricket that is telecast live across the country.
Our consistent participation in these races has provided us a great ability to relate to the masses and connect with the public in a socially acceptable manner. This has been evident in the road shows we have conducted across the country where there have been large crowd gatherings to witness our team and purchase our merchandise.
Earlier this year we realised that if we structure these efforts in a framework which works around a few core areas of creating the passion for the sport, this model could be replicated in many countries, especially in the neighbouring countries. When we observed our neighbouring countries such as Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal etc., we realised that these countries are socially emerging countries with little entertainment and social activities. The fact that these countries have a higher population density makes it far easier to reach the masses. This made us explore these countries a little more, during which we realised that these countries are in their infancy when it comes to motor racing structure and followership. For me personally, this gives me a challenge, as I look at these markets as virgin territories.
Q: Is there any particular reason you selected Pakistan as your first country? From what I understand, motor racing is not a known sport in the country. How do you foresee this impacting your plans?
A: This is a question many people have been asking. Pakistan has been experiencing a set of testing years for the last 6-7 years. International sports came to a standstill with the unfortunate incident our cricket team experienced in Lahore. As a whole the people in Pakistan have not had the opportunity of embracing any sort of international sport in the country. So I do agree that when you consider these facts the outlook is pretty gloomy.
The primary reason we began with Pakistan is because our newly formed partnership with the Dubai-based Interactive Group, has a predominant market is Pakistan. The alliance had a natural extension for us to enter Pakistan and interact in creating passion for motor sports. Our very first interactions in Pakistan have been highly successful. The way I look at it, it offers us a virgin territory.
Four years back when we first started EZY Racing, we entered a phase that was never explored in local motor racing. We are an organisation that’s driven by passion, and this passion made us drive our vision in Sri Lanka to a success. As daunting as Pakistan sounds, I believe we have found a very strong and sound partner in the Interactive Group which shares the same amount of passion that we have towards motor racing. Together I am very confident that we can drive our plans in Pakistan to success.
Q: Tell us about this new International Principal Partnership that EZY Racing recently signed up with?
A: As a motor racing team, when we first set started, we wanted to be contending in the international circuits by 2015. As simple as this sounds, in the world of motor racing this isn’t an easy task. It is equally or even more challenging than preparing the Sri Lankan soccer team to play in the FIFA world cup. To be a successful International racing team, we need to be able to develop a fresh set of resources and build a team around it as the dynamics of racing internationally are totally different to local motor racing. To begin with, the entire car preparation process is very different. The FIA, who govern in international motor sports, have a very strictly scrutinised system which has a very high level of focus on safety standards. Therefore, preparing a car to compete internationally not only requires a great deal of resources and driving skills, but also a professional approach to motor racing, which includes the many disciplines of professional motor racing. Finding this combination is very hard in Sri Lanka.
In order for us to be a successful motor racing team internationally, we will be required to develop a sustainable model similar to how we developed our local motor racing team, specifically for international racing. This is a mammoth step forward from what we do in Sri Lankan motor racing. Therefore finding partners who have international interests are of paramount importance, because without partners, the sustainability of this model will be a challenge. As a team we are currently evolving and have decided to keep local racing partners and international racing partners separate, with the exception of two key partnership positions. One being the principal partner of the team and the other being the title partner of the team, who will also get to add their name in front of EZY Racing and obtain the naming rights of the team.
As the first phase in our international campaign we didn’t want to make the title partnership available at the beginning as this is the premier partnership category that the team has to offer. We wanted to grow our stature internationally before offering this partnership opportunity. We therefore set about finding a principal partner for our international and local racing team, which is the next largest partnership category. This is where when we were introduced to the interactive group by a mutual friend. Since our very first interaction in February, I am pleased to say that within a short of span of three months we achieved a lot together with our discussions maturing, to lay strong foundations for a longstanding partnership.
"Our success primarily has stemmed from the fact that we operate our motor racing entity no different to how we operate the rest of our businesses. If you closely observe, other than our lubricant partner Mobil, our partners have primarily been non motor related brands, which is rarely seen in local motor racing. Additionally, all our partners are internationally acclaimed brands, which has today given us a great deal of awareness in the other countries these brands are present in
In order for us to be a successful motor racing team internationally, we will be required to develop a sustainable model similar to how we developed our local motor racing team, specifically for international racing. This is a mammoth step forward from what we do in Sri Lankan motor racing"
Q: Does EZY Racing plan to do motor racing in Pakistan with Interactive Group?
A: No we do not intend to do any kind of competitive racing as a motor racing team in Pakistan. Our objective, together with the Interactive Group in Pakistan, is to plan a three-phased interaction plan in Pakistan where we first intend on powering a set of Pakistan engineering students who have qualified to present a locally manufactured formula car in the world Formula Student Competition in Silverstone UK in July. We are planning on structuring a program where more universities in Pakistan would show interest in this program and thereby help propagate the sport amongst the student community who are close to 50% of the population.
One of the key areas that EZY Racing has designed as an interactive area whereby we could connect with the masses is the ‘Racing Is My Passion’, also known as RIMP Events we plan to execute in every country. Over the next 12 months we will be introducing 4 of these RIMP events to create the passion for motor sports in the country. Three of these will be for the public who pre own vehicles where they will be drag racing, skills displaying and manoeuvring themselves in the busy roads of Pakistan in a city challenge. These three RIMP events will be executed in a phased out manner.
With the success of these events, we are hopeful that many people would understand the excitement that motor racing can create. As the fourth RIMP event we intend to introduce the Super Karter which allows even people who don’t own a vehicle to participate. This will be an ‘idol’ program where we intend providing a level playing field for one individual amongst 190 million people in Pakistan, to be crowned the karting king of the nation.
Q: If you don’t plan to do motor racing, what exactly is the purpose in setting an International Operation?
A: See, we cannot replicate the motor racing success we have in one country in every other country. Unfortunately it doesn’t work like that in motor racing. You need to have an ecosystem that is mature enough to conduct the races. These countries are not yet at that stage. So going into these countries to compete would be premature.
Besides, our vision with EZY Racing, it to propagate the brand EZY Racing using innovative methods. The model we have designed is for EZY Racing to be recognised over the next three years as an international racing team that contends in the topmost motor racing bracket in Asia Pacific. By doing so, we intend to create a massive followership to our race team from the countries where we have propagated the brand, like in Pakistan. This way, while engaging in grass root activities to create passion for motor racing, we also will be developing a massive followership for EZY Racing’s international racing team, which hopefully will help increase the television viewership in the countries our brand EZY Racing is present in.
If I take an example of soccer and the world’s most famous club, Manchester United, they have a similar approach. Although they are a soccer team competing in the English Premier League, most people know them for the brand ‘ManU’. They do have soccer development centres around Asia, but that doesn’t mean they compete in this part of the world. What they primarily do is operate a well thought out organisation where through their soccer academies they successfully create new followership to their brand.
We are adopting a similar approach. Our vision is to develop and strengthen the awareness of our international racing team. In order to propagate this team in countries in this region, we will select countries that are socially emerging and set our RIMP program in those countries, which will help us to socially connect with the public and hopefully have a greater following to our International Racing Team.
Q: So EZY Racing plans race at international circuits with this partnership; how soon will this be?
A: Yes, we will be running internationally and it will be very soon. In fact, as we speak, we are preparing ourselves to unveil our international racing car next week, which will be patronised by one of the leading personalities in the Asia Pacific Region in Motor Racing. We are hoping to start our international racing stint in August with a brand new driver line up who will focus only on international races.
Q: Recent media coverage revealed that EZY Racing launched a Formula car in Pakistan. What is the objective and how do you the see this impacting your plans given that you don’t foresee EZY Racing doing motor racing in Pakistan?
A: NUST stands for National University of Science and Technology. The mechanical engineering faculty students have been able to become the only engineering team from Pakistan to qualify for the Formula Student competition. This competition is held annually in UK and is also perceived to be the hiring ground for Formula 1 engineers. 196 teams from 130 odd countries qualified for this event in 2014. The Interactive Group in two previous years have been supporting this team financially. This year around we were invited by Interactive to join forces and guide the students of NUST.
Since this program fitted in perfectly with the EZY Racing Young Driver Program, we together, decided to take over the entire costs of manufacturing the car and sending the students to UK, thereby calling the team ‘Interactive EZY Racing – Formula NUST Team’. We have a four year vision and commitment to drive this program to success, where the Pakistan-based engineers could finish among the top 10 in the world rankings.
Q: It is indeed a phenomenal achievement for EZY Racing to have come this far since its inception in 2010. When you first started EZY Racing in 2009 as just a sponsor of race drivers, before moving to becoming a professional outfit in 2010, did you imagine that this journey would be a reality?
A: In 2009, I got into the sport as a navigator for Shafraz Junaid who is our current rally driver in Sri Lanka. We were launching EZY Computers and we were looking to see how we could cost effectively market the PC’s better. So we branded two racing cars. The branding exercise was a success and with that I realised that we could achieve much more in motor racing, and definitely far more than what people hitherto perceived, could be achieved.
We decided to keep things simple and focus on a few areas we thought we could excel in. My firm belief is that if you focus on your basics, the result will come on its own. So we took small strides, whilst at the same time evolving as a motor racing team, perfecting our race driver line up and our crew back up, focusing on technology, strengthening our team and most importantly the partner management side.
When I started in 2010, I was clear on what EZY Racing could achieve. The only thing I wasn’t sure about was whether we could achieve it within the stipulated time frame we optimistically set ourselves, namely 2015 being the year we would race internationally. Today, I am truly humbled by the fact that our efforts and commitment have translated to us achieving our goals and being able to fast forward our target by one year, where we will now run internationally in 2014!
