Ok I am going to go off on a little rant here, and no offense to anyone who may consider discounts a true sponsorship.
Here's the deal. More often than not you will be offered discounted parts. This is fine if it is something you are going to buy regardless of whether you get a discount from this company or not, but it is certainly not a sponsorship. Sponsorships shouldn't cost you any money. If a company offers you a discount, they aren't investing anything into you, they are just agreeing not to make as much money off of you as they normally would. If you are a wheel company lets say and you give me cost on a set of $3000 wheels bringing them down to $1700. Thats awesome, but that company hasn't invested anything in me, they just agreed not to make money off of me on that set of wheels. Now on the flip side, say you give me a free tow hook that your cost is $50 on. You have invested $50 more in me than the wheel company and that is something that I personally value more.
I am not saying that I haven't accepted discount type "sponsorships" in the past, nor am I saying that I wont in the future, but you best believe that I am not going to accept it unless I was already planning on buying that item.
Personally its a bit of a sore subject, but I understand that its the way it is. Because companies can sponsor so many different cars without investing anything into them, that has become the normal way of things in the import community. Unfortunately this takes a huge toll on real race teams who need real support from these companies to continue to push the envelope of these cars and create an aftermarket full of proven quality parts. Why would a company invest any money in a race team when they can sponsor 100 show cars and forum heros for basically free?
/rant
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