Formula Drift Car Marks First Motorsport Sponsorship From Marijuana Distributor

There’s a joke on the Internet that says racing can turn you into a millionaire, but only if you are a billionaire. That is something that has been confirmed to us by several race car drivers we met over the years, and it is still something that crushes our souls when we dream about racing.

If you do not have a successful company behind you, willing to fund a racing career, you will have to search for sponsors. Unfortunately, it is not that straightforward to find companies interested in spending thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars on an amateur racer, or on someone who just started his or her road in the sport.

Fortunately, companies are willing to pay for exposure on a car or motorcycle that is used to race, even if it is not the top player at the moment. This time, we have a premiere in motorsport, in the form of the first ever sponsorship deal with a cannabis distributor.

Portland-based Shango Premium Cannabis has become the first brand from this field to sponsor an athlete in motorsport. The lucky driver is Danny George, a Formula Drift athlete from Las Vegas, Autoblog reports.

The logo of the brand will be present on his BMW M3 E36 throughout the entire 2017 season of Formula Drift. He is described as a favorite of the fans in the sport, and his core sponsor is “Shango,” a company that grows and sells cannabis.

Since marijuana is legal in many U.S. states for recreational consumption by adults, many companies have turned to this line of business.

Unlike tobacco, a former big sponsor of motorsport, advertising a cannabis brand is allowed in the USA. Nobody knows how long this will be allowed, but we are surprised it had taken that long since “weed” became legal in an American state until the moment of a sponsorship deal.

We expected vaping companies to invest in motorsport as well, but they seem to have focused on celebrity endorsements instead.