Member Article

Two Yorkshire Companies Drift into Sponsorship Deal for 2021

Rotherham based motorsport retailer Gala Performance has announced an increase in support for the UK’s professional drifting series, The British Drift Championship, whose base of operations is just a few miles away in South Elmsall.

The deal comes after the two Yorkshire-based brands spent part of 2020 building the partnership, with several publicity stunts. One such stunt involved the Manvers HQ of Gala Performance being transformed into a drift circuit, for professional drivers Ian “Bizz” Phillips, with Monster Energy Athlete and Gymkhana World Champion Luke Woodham, to burn rubber, as a novel way of launching BDC Insider, a pay-per-view platform for the British Drift Championship, which is dedicated to providing high quality exclusive footage of the professional on-track action.

Gala Performance Marketing Manager, Ryan Bracha, said, “We had big plans for success in 2020, having had a small involvement in the series the year before, but the pandemic and lockdown put paid to that. However, despite the uncertainty, the Return on Investment was huge, and it made total commercial sense to increase our support for 2021. It helps that the guys are so ambitious and eager to improve everything they do, as this is a key asset of our team here at Gala Performance.”

The British Drift Championship is renowned as the UK’s Professional Drift Series, with up to eighty competitors per event taking to the track to show off their vehicle handling skills in front of thousands of fans. It has launched the careers of many popular drivers over the past, including drift megastar, Monster Energy Athlete, Steve “Baggsy” Biagioni. From 2019, the series was taken over by Matt Stevenson, former BDC competitor and owner of Slide Motorsport, based out of South Elsmall, and alongside General Manager Mac Frost, the pair have breathed new and exciting life into an already exciting sports series.

Of the renewed and improved deal, Matt said, “It has been an absolute pleasure to work Ryan and the Gala team for the past two years, and I am very excited to keep building on that in 2021 and beyond. The Gala team are non-stop with ideas of how to keep things original and are incredibly driven in what they do. The key thing for me is that they sell great products that people want, and it’s all on the shelf and available. It’s great to have partners right on our doorstep, and we’re looking forward to seeing what other madness they will let us get away with if we bring some more cars down to their warehouse again next year.”

Gala Performance is the motorsport-specific brand of Gala Tent, the UK’s leading supplier of marquees, pop-up gazebos and branded tents, and since 2016 has grown to become an established name, with credible partnerships with World Endurance Champions, United Autosports, as well as popular young Clio Cup driver Max Coates, and the officially endorsed Toyota MR2 Championship.

BDC General Manager, Mac, said of the partnership, “I’ve loved every second of working with Gala for the last couple of years, and Ryan has been right there whenever we have needed them. We’ve all battled through a tough and challenging year, and now with some glimpse of normality on the horizon, we’re very excited to take that to the next level in 2021.

You can expect to see a lot more from the BDC and Gala Performance over the next twelve months, both across social media and at the events we’ll be holding.“

Besides supporting other organisations, the brand is also the supporting name for Gala Performance Motorsport, an ambitious team racing in the wildly popular Citroen C1 Challenge, and the team will be competing in the second 24hrs of Silverstone event in May.

Gala Performance is a brand of Gala Tent founded in 2016 after sponsoring start up racing team United Autosports, who went on to win the European Le Mans Series LMP3 class championship the same year. In 2017 the sponsorship deal was renewed under the Gala Performance name, placing the company’s branding onto the LMP3 cars for a second season as the team defended its title. Now the fastest growing motorsports team in Europe United Autosports were crowned 2020 European Le Man Champions.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by James Lead .