For those that don’t know me - my life’s been occupied by more than enough physical challenges.  I was born with a rare bone disease where proper amounts of Calcium and Collagen don’t form in my body.  The result is countless bones broken and time away from racing that has also broken my heart.

Though I’m faced to deal with “this arrangement” everyday, for some crazy reason, I enjoy adding challenges to other areas of my life.  An example is my work at Driver Connection.

I get really pumped prior to meeting with a marketing head or company owner.  In my head I liken the meeting to a feature race or critical qualifying lap that I must win.  I become so passionate in my discussion that I am still amazed to this day at how much energy I use during a meeting. 

Before any sponsorship meeting can happen though there is still the frequent phone calling.  This stuff can make me crazy.  And the research?  There never seems to be enough time to do both.  Overall my biggest frustration comes when a proposal or sponsorship doesn’t go through.  I really get down-in-the-dumps when that happens which is an emotion we can all do without. 

Though loosing a program happens more times than securing “The Deal”, I reason to myself that just as there will be more races – I will have many more opportunities.  I don’t ever give up.

Sure I’m frustrated.  When I begin to get a bit neurotic I have a bunch of quotes nearby that I read that help me to switch the direction of my thoughts.  

One of my favorites is by Mark Hanson.  I feel it should be written on a lot of race shop walls.  I have it near my computer.  It reads: Your belief determines your action and your action determines your results, but first you have to believe.

I believe in myself …my programs and the race car drivers I support 100 percent!

Anyway, it just so happened that, a few weeks back I was experiencing a really frustrating day.  Not even a Mark Hanson quote could help.  It was a Tuesday as I rarely make my initial calls to people on Monday.  It’s a weird belief I have - not wanting to phone when the time is wrong or the probability of that person being in a hurried or hasty mood is high. 

This Tuesday morning I had made nine phone-calls and not during one had I spoken to a live person.  Every call went to voice-mail.

My level of frustration was slowly inching skyward.  So as I do on many afternoons I worked at fine-tuning a presentation.

Then right before 3:00PM the phone began to ring.  On the other end was a beautiful voice.  It was the head of marketing for one of the companies I had phoned that morning.  She said she enjoyed my prepared speech.

This week I asked?  Sure I can was my response.  It will be on your desk Thursday afternoon.  Is that OK I asked?  And she answered that would be great.

So with my mind beginning to race I put the phone down and without delay, before my hand could pull from the receiver, the phone began to ring again.  Is this Rick the voice asked?  I responded yes and she explained “I have a meeting in Hartford on Wednesday afternoon could you meet with me afterwards say at about 4:00PM?

What was I going to say No?  Absolutely I replied and my heart shifted another gear. 

Know remember, I have a proposal to prepare for mailing and a meeting to get ready for that also needs a presentation.  All from my morning phone calls.

But my turn-around-day didn’t stop there.  Less than five minutes later the phone rang again

This time it was a man whose voice I recognized.  Daniel Grandy has been manufacturing jewelry for close to forty years.  For the past ten he has been building a company called RACECAR Jewelry.  I knew Dan from racing Slot Cars with him but knew little about his company and his interest in promotion.

His Cranston Rhode Island business is in the heart of asphalt Modified country.  He explained his interest in looking over a proposal on my driver Victoria Bergenty. 

Daniel has little time to visit race tracks like he once did but while at Stafford Speedway last season he watched Victoria storm to a heat race win.  When he learned that my company was working with “V” (as we now call her) he thought she could be a great fit in promoting RACECARJewelry.com. 

Social media sites have taken over the way people communicate and how drivers and sponsors reach their fans.  My new challenge for the promotion of RACECAR Jewelry is to know build a program that gets race fans to visit both the website and Facebook page of Victoria and RACECAR Jewelry with the primary goal of building sales. 

Though I had never produced an Internet program created to build corporate sales I was really excited to start.  I looked at it as another new challenge and a great opportunity for everyone involved.

So on that Tuesday – a day that began pretty miserable –in less than ten minutes time turned into an amazing day.  A day closer for me to winning "my race" and grabbing that perfect lap. 

Long story short: Never give up the challenge or the race.  We never know what the next day or even the next minute will bring in our life or racing.  Look at each as a new challenge and a new adventure.

Rick Raducha/Driver Connection