Ryan Ellis is currently in his second season with Alpha Prime Racing, which includes the addition of several sponsors. The latest to join the lineup is ShineWater, which is the direct result of hard work and very little sleep.
Ellis, who has also worked in marketing and PR during his NASCAR career, spent the offseason trying to focus on the business side. The current landscape in NASCAR forces teams to focus on drivers that can bring money to the table.
Ellis and his wife, Allison, realized that pursuing a full-time racing schedule without partners providing support is not sustainable, so they spent hundreds of hours working on building a solid foundation that included Four Loko, Costa Oil, ShineWater, and other companies.
“I kind of started initiating those processes in my daily life and, honestly, I was pulling like 18-20-hour days,” Ellis told Heavy at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. “It was not sustainable at all, but we grew it a lot. And that’s the only way to have job sustainability, so I feel a lot better. Now, I’m sleeping a lot better.”
My new suit came in last week from !
Really stoked to get our first 2023 primary on track in a few months. We’ve got a lot of races together from mid-season on!
It all starts with the Darlington throwback 👀 | pic./1yZWTJgR7U
— Ryan Ellis () March 6, 2023
This effort is reflected in the largest schedule — by far — of Ellis’ career. He will take on at least 25 races for Alpha Prime Racing while serving as the anchor driver of the No. 43 Chevrolet Camaro, and he will work with several primary partners in the process.
“We’ve raised like $600,000 just in the offseason,” Ellis continued. “Like, we more than doubled the amount of sponsorship we had just in three months. So I was just losing sleep over it and in a good way.
“I was addicted to it like a ‘Wolf of Wall Street’ thing. It was bad though. We were… no sleep and a lot of caffeine. I actually literally suffered caffeine withdrawals in the offseason.”
This Work Has Been a Selling Point for Partners
Jeff HildebrantShineWater sponsored Ryan Ellis at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
As Ellis explained, his path to the NASCAR Xfinity Series is not like other peers. He does not have the lineage associated with a …read more
Source:: Heavy.com