Stories
Stories
In the Driver's Seat
NASCAR racing is one of the more popular spectator sports in the country, but it's a tight little fraternity that's tough to join and expensive to belong to — maintaining a competitive team costs about $15 million per season. But die-hard racing buff Jeffrey Roe Hitchcock (MBA '90) wants ordinary fans to be able to get more closely involved than just smelling fumes at trackside. He has founded a company, Fanz Enterprises (http://fanzenterprises.com), that is selling stock at $10 a share in hopes of raising at least $10 million to field a NASCAR team. (If fewer than a million shares are sold, investors will get their money back with interest.) Sponsorships will be another important source of potential revenue.
“We're trying to take a different approach to the business than just, Let's go racing,' ” Hitchcock told the Indianapolis Star (March 18, 2002), adding that fan response has been “crazy.” Hitchcock has hired a former NASCAR crew chief to be Fanz's spokesman, and he intends to seek out the best available personnel for crews and drivers. Among other perks of ownership, the stockholders will be able to vote on whom they want behind the wheel of the company car.
Hitchcock had toyed with the notion for Fanz before. But in 1999, when one of his newborn twin sons, Jackson Roscoe, died shortly after birth due to congenital heart disease complications, the idea took on a new reality for Hitchcock and his wife, Joni. “Jackson was the one who made me stop and do this,” Hitchcock said, explaining that the Jackson Roscoe Foundation, set up to benefit children's hospitals and medical research, will receive 2.5 percent of Fanz's pretax profits.