TUESDAY, MAY 08, 2012 - The costs of racing are many and the biggies of those weekend expenses for larger teams such as our's is lodging.  Herd Racing is fortunate to have developed lodging partnerships with hotels in most of the race cities where our team travels.  We are happy to renew that relationship next weekend with returning hotel sponsor, the Hilton Garden Inn in Cincinnati/Sharonville.

Next weekend when our team travels to Dayton, Ohio to test our SST-120 boat we will be staying with the folks at the Hilton Garden Inn for the third time.  We were fortunate enough to lodge with the northern Cincinnati area hotel during our 2011 trips to Aurora and Hamilton, and hope to stay with them again this year when we travel to Aurora in mid August.  As for Hamilton, that race's future is yet to be determined.

Anyway, securing lodging partnerships is a very important part of our sponsorship hunt each off season, and finding hotels that are willing to renew with our team for a second, or even third time, tells me something about the relationships we have been able to forge.  Our team offers them some free and fun advertising with no out-of-pocket costs.  The hotel staff joins us at the races, gets to try out the driver's seats of our boats and gets a large decal on our boats, as well as lots of publicity on our website and social media feeds.  Apparently, the trade-off has worked well for both parties as many of the places we stayed in 2011 have already signed on for another year in 2012.

This week we were able to secure 2012 lodging agreements with the Quality Inn University Center in Pittsburgh for the early July EQT Three Rivers Regatta.  We also have come to terms to stay at the Magnuson Hotel on the Interstate across the river from the Marietta, Ohio race site.  Negotiations are ongoing for other 2012 race lodging partnerships.  In Huntington we can obviously sleep in our own beds and it looks promising that Portsmouth and Aurora will find us with a lodging partnership in place.  That just leaves Kankakee, Memphis and New Martinsville and we will be working hard before the season opener to secure those agreements before we hit the racing road for the summer months.

I hope that if you are in the areas where our team races that you will attempt to book your rooms at those hotels which support our team.  You can learn more about Herd Racing's lodging partners on our website at http://www.herdracing.com/lodgingpartners.php.

Dana Tomes