The VISITFLORIDA.com Racing Team kicked off the 2016 season at the 54th annual Rolex 24 at Daytona this past weekend with a podium finish.  This marks year three of VISIT FLORIDA’s partnership with Jim France’s International Speedway Corporation (ISC), the VISITFLORIDA.com Racing Team, the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship and Mazda USA. Together, these four well-known entities make up the largest motorsports partnership of its kind aimed at aggressively driving tourism to Florida.

The No. 90 VISITFLORIDA.com Racing Corvette DP, driven by Ryan Dalziel, Marc Goossens and Ryan Hunter-Reay, finished third in Daytona after 24 hours of hard-fought racing.  The newly created driving trio proved to be a potent one as the three drivers combined to deliver a podium result in their first race together.

“I’m encouraged for the season ahead and it’s a great start toward the championship,” said driver Ryan Dalziel. “I live in Florida and I’ve kind of adopted it as my second home. We’ve got a lot of people here from VISIT FLORIDA, and we’re happy that we put on a good show for them. Ryan Hunter-Reay and I are both living in Florida and we’re proud to represent the brand.”

With Florida as the home of iconic racing venues and motorsports events attracting millions of visitors each year, VISIT FLORIDA’s racing partnership offers Florida’s tourism industry an unprecedented opportunity to influence race fans and motorsports enthusiasts around the world. The goal of VISIT FLORIDA’s involvement is to increase VISITFLORIDA.com’s reach to domestic and international audiences at a fraction of the cost that it would take otherwise – the partnership is a highly leveraged, efficient and productive media buy that garners a better than 4:1 return on investment.

While VISIT FLORIDA has had a presence in racing for many years now, we have focused more recently on progressively stepping up into the more popular WeatherTech Racing series which attracts a world-wide audience of international fans who are predisposed to travel.  The program is centered around the VISITFLORIDA.com paint scheme and in-venue signage, which guarantee constant impressions even if our car is not in the lead and allows us to actively engage with fans during the races.  In addition, VISIT FLORIDA also has commercial mentions in the presence of tags at the end of partner commercials.

At each race, VISIT FLORIDA will leverage the media in attendance, creating photo and media opportunities through special events such as meet-and-greets.  We will also have new VISITFLORIDA.com show cars, duplicates of the race car that the media and fans can interact with, take pictures of and even ride in.  The show car will have two seats so the drivers can take media on test laps and give them an experience worth writing about.

VISIT FLORIDA will also leverage race days to host Business-to-Business (B2B) Facilitation Opportunities that get, for example, meeting planners from around the country and hotel property representatives from Florida talking to one another.

In 2016, the VISITFLORIDA.com Racing team will be participating in the full 12-race IMSA WeatherTech Series season, which includes another race in Florida at the famed Sebring International Raceway, as well as other iconic tracks around the U.S. including Laguna Seca, Watkins Glen, Road America and Circuit of the Americas.  The series has put together a very strong broadcast and streaming schedule with FOX Sports 1 and 2, as well as IMSA TV.  With a racing season that extends from January to October, VISIT FLORIDA will have advertising and promotional programs in key markets all year round.

Look for the No. 90 VISITFLORIDA.com race car at the next event on the schedule – the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring Fueled by Fresh From Florida, March 16-19, 2016.   Also, follow our team year-round on the official VISITFLORIDA.com Racing Facebook and Twitter pages.