I've got to say, I haven't been the most reliable blogger! Completely digging my head into the internship I was granted for the Summer I found it difficult to find the time. I'm hoping those who are reading would be interested in hearing how things went!
The internship blasted off by welcoming me into one of the five events they hold over the race season. The Trans Am series stopped by Lime Rock Park for what I call my first experience as an intern. I was thrilled to be around all of the race cars, fans, and teams. The employees of Lime Rock are so welcoming, it's unbelievable the amount of work that goes into these events. I got to experience all sorts of interesting amenities by interning with Renea Topp, the marketing director of LRP. She was the one to hire me as her intern, and definitely put me to work! Trans Am is a popular series, but wasn't the most eventful out of the five that take place throughout the season. The next event was the American Le Mans Series, followed by the Ferrari Challenge, then the Historic Festival, and finishing off with Grand Am.
All of these event are coordinated by about 15 people, who work countless hours throughout the week building up to the weekend these cars come to LRP. They truly amaze me at how much effort they put in, for just a couple of days at the track. My favorite event was the Historic Festival. It was interesting to see all different types of people, THOUSANDS of people, joining together to show off their cars. The Historic Festival holds over 150 cars from 1985 and earlier. The oldest car we had dated back to 1909! As an intern, I was tasked with many tedious yet rewarding jobs throughout the Summer.
My first task was to organize contracts that Lime Rock had with corporation's, such as Crystal Rock, Ferrari, BMW, Hummel, and more! I learned a lot by organizing these, learning to create a contract of my own one day. I was also tasked with handling a lot of media operations. I'd e-mail the photographers, editors, publishers, writers, and owners of magazines, newspapers, websites and small businesses to organize when they would be coming to the track, where they would go, what passes they'd need, and all of the details that go into getting these people to LRP on time and ready to take pictures! It was a lot of e-mailing 24/7 but I enjoyed it! Another job that I aided in was creating excel spread sheets of information. There were all sorts of spread sheets that needed to be made whether it was for contact information for businesses, schedules for the race weekend, or tedious information that needed to be documented in an orderly fashion. One of the spread sheets took me about a month to complete. I had to research all of the Grand Am teams and their information, such as the team name, owners, drivers, cars, contact numbers or e-mails for the drivers, PR, traveling agents, or managers/owners. It was difficult to collect all of this but I got it done! Mind you there are over 30 race teams, some of these teams have 3 to 8 drivers. It was tedious work for sure.
The entire summer I was also told to organize all of the media that is done on Lime Rock Park before or after events, such as magazine or newspaper clippings or website articles. I would scan the clippings or save a PDF of the website document and organize them into folders for our media records.
I also papered about 20 surrounding towns to Lime Rock with outreach to the public of upcoming events! I had hung over 350 posters.
One of the days I'll never forget, I had to call over 50 businesses and ask them if they were interested in purchasing a spot in the Daily Rev - a mini magazine given to all fans when they walk into the track. This taught me a lot about the ups and downs of telecommunication.
Toward the end of the Summer, before I went back to school, I was given a list of entrants from the previous Historic Festival event held in 2011. All of these entrants were race car drivers of old school cars that would be competing in the upcoming weekend. I was to look up contact information of local and out of state newspapers that were near these drivers. There were over 200 entrants..
I was to contact the newspaper, such as The Newtown Bee, and see if they would be interested in writing an article about local drivers that will be participating in the Historic Festival. If they contacted me back I would then contact the driver(s) and see if it was okay to forward their information through to the newspaper. Again, a lot of e-mailing and calling, but rewarding publicity for Lime Rock Park.
My final task was to create 250+ concours signs for each car registered into the Historic Festival. This was complicated because there were a lot of additions and resigns right up to the very day of the event. Each sign listed the class the car was in, the name of the owner(s), class slogan, and the year and make of the vehicle. Creating these took over 12 hours, which I completed in about two days. I then printed them on special paper, and laminated each one by hand. The laminating took me 10 hours, which I completed in one day. The following day my co-worker Rick and I put each sign on a single wooden display board and organized all 250 of them into their class so the next day it would be easy to locate the cars concours sign.
Finally, one of the things that I personally brought to the table for LRP was a product called Status Bandz. They are materialized like the Livestrong bracelets but have sayings on both sides, therefore it is reversable. I know the owner of Status Bandz and thought it would be cool to have them for sale at LRP. Renea thought it was great too! Therefore we had a meeting, came up with some ideas, and things were looking up. Renea took control of the ordeal, and I guess she'd like to do it for next year if Skip is willing to invest. I thought this was a great idea that I put together, as an intern.
I must admit, through all of the work I got to do the most valuable thing I learned is to pay attention to all of the details that goes into theses events. Every little thing matters, especially in contracts. Through the many hours put in, it's rewarding to meet some corporate owners of Ferrari or BMW and have them congratulate everyone on their hard work. Skip Barber, the owner of LRP seemed pleased with my internship over the Summer. I was happy to have been welcomed with open arms. I would've loved to continue working there, but it's too far of a commute to handle while going to school.
My junior year began a few weeks ago, and I am pleased to say I love all of my classes and professors. It looks like I will be having another successful semester here at WCSU.
