 Chub
Frank, known by his multitude of fans across the country as ‘Chubzilla’,
has just announced the signing of a major, multi-year major sponsorship
agreement with Lester Buildings of Lester Prairie, MN. The new marketing
agreement will see the famed dirt Late Model star racing with the Lester
Buildings colors and sponsorship logos for the next three years. During
2006 Chub Frank will be competing on the World of Outlaws Late Model
Series as he attempts to capture the 2006 championship title aboard his
Lester Buildings, Corry Rubber, All Star Performance, Corry Laser, Slavic
Corporation, Farr MotorSports, Custom Race Engines, Rocket Chassis #1*. |
| “It feels great,” stated Frank,
also a former World 100 champion. Negotiations took just over two weeks
between Larry Lembrich and Tom Borgman of Lester Buildings and Mike Farr
of Farr Motorsports to complete the deal. “It’s something hard to do in
dirt Late Model racing. It’s going to help our team out a lot. We’ve been
looking forward to going racing this year especially after signing with
Lester and it showed last night by just how positive everyone was. We’re
coming out swinging I guess you could say.”
Frank won the UMP sanctioned feature event on Wednesday February 1 at
Golden Isle Speedway in his first race of the 2006 season.
The new 2006 Rocket Chassis body graphics design is currently being
formulated by Ron Slavic and John Flinner and for the first time the
familiar ‘Chub blue’ color scheme will be absent in favor of Lester
Buildings colors on the famed #1*. All race cars will change graphics
packages and colors between Florida’s Speedweeks events and the first
World of Outlaws event in March except the World 100 car which will change
to 2006 schemes later on.
“We’re in step with Chub and his team,” commented Tom Borgman, Marketing
Manager for Lester Buildings. “We’re very pleased with the personality and
the whole cult of his fan base. We’re reaching a different group of people
than what we’re reaching with NASCAR. We look at it as completing the
cycle and frankly we actually feel very comfortable with the folks we are
reaching through Chub’s pull and personality with the sponsorship. We’re
real pleased.”
Lester Buildings joined up with Chub Frank’s race team early last year
soon after Frank lost his shop in a fire that was a total loss. That is
when Lester Buildings stepped in and during the year the impact from being
involved with dirt Late Model racing and Chub Frank specifically was
defining when it came time for Lester Buildings to up the ante and take on
a major sponsorship role with the team especially after different
promotional events (World 100, etc…) and the response from dirt racing
fans.
“It was always hard for me to understand, not being a big race guy myself,
it was hard for me to see without seeing it on TV which is changing and
which played into our agreement with Chub, but yes, I’ve been to a few of
the events and it was an eye opener to me,” explained Borgman. “It wasn’t
so much an eye opener to (Lester Buildings’s) Larry (Larry Lembrich) who
has been around racing his whole life, but was it an eye opener for me?
Yes!”
Lester Buildings is one of the largest manufacturers of engineered, wood
frame building systems in the United States. Our buildings cover a broad
range of customer needs, from standard simple pole barns to custom,
one-of-a-kind structures and everything in between. Nearly 130,000 Lester®
buildings dot the American landscape today.
Lester buildings are sold and erected through independent, locally-owned
Lester builders who service a wide area of the country ranging from the
eastern seaboard to the Rocky Mountains.
The new marketing partnership with Lester Buildings serves as motivation
for Chub Frank and his team. “Definitely,” proclaimed Frank. “The whole
deal with the garage, they helped us out and that’s all pretty much behind
us, the garage is all done. And now we’re focusing on the racing.”
For many a major marketing agreement with a national mainstream company
would take pressure off most drivers and team owners, but not Chub Frank.
“No this doesn’t take pressure off because I have to perform,” said Frank.
“And we want to perform the best. And we’ll have to work a little harder
because we want to keep the sponsor. So we’ll actually work harder. But
like I Said, since the garage is done now we can focus on the racing and
the whole racing deal will be to sell Lester Buildings, selling the name
and their products.”
Frank is also confident that the arrangement will be beneficial for both
parties based on their working and promotional relationship last season.
“We have a good working relationship with Tom and Larry and all of them,”
said Frank. “I probably don’t get to talk to them as much as Mike Farr
does. The biggest problem I have is we’re going wide open like at Eldora
doing autograph sessions and doing their promotional things so we don’t
get the time to sit down and talk like I like to, but we do take the time
to talk to the fans, and that’s what is important.”
And Borgman concurs, especially as it relates to demographics. “That was
sort of our first ring of fire as they say when we got into motorsport
sponsorship,” said Borgman. “That is what we wanted to go after at first.
We have defiantly seen that and that is where a majority of our return on
investment has been. We’re looking at this year as our crux year on both
the NASCAR and dirt side to be the year where we reach a heck of a lot
more regular folk.”
“It’s an important demographic. The biggest market for our product is the
active lifestyle person who has a couple acres or more who is a gear-head.
Who has ATV’s snowmobiles, race cars, what have you. And that is where our
biggest growth is. The ag-market is declining in importance and the
consumer market is growing a great deal and that’s one of the reasons why
we got into motorsports.”
All new ‘Chubzilla’ merchandise is being produced by Ron Slavic and Slavic
Custom Shirts & Decals, the official merchandise provider of Chub Frank
Racing.
For more information on Chub Frank Racing visit: www.chubfrank.com For
more additional information on Lester Buildings visit:
www.lesterbuildings.com
Prepared by Lehman Motorsports Services
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