McLaren CEO Zak Brown Still Gets FOMO About Racing Cars

And you do what you do as a 13-year-old, you look immediately at what’s the most expensive thing you can buy.

How much money are we talking about here?

$3,050 I think it was, or $3,000.

That’s not an insignificant sum of money.

Went to the top of the list, which happened to be his and hers watches, which as it came out of my mouth was, what does a 13-year-old want with some very nice Cartier watches?

Then I went back to the Long Beach Grand Prix in 1987 with my buddy in high school, met Mario Andretti, and I was very intimidated. Now I wanted to kinda get into racing, and I asked him, “How do you get started?” He said, “Karting.”

By karting, you mean go-karting?

Go-karting, yep. It’s the little league, if you’d like, even though it’s very serious. And I thought, “Ah, I know how I can pay for this. I got some watches in my drawer that I think I can take to a Van Nuys pawn shop.” Went and sold them, got some cash.

They never asked me, “Why do you have these watches?” Today they’d probably not pass the KYC test at a pawn shop. So I sold them, bought a go-kart, and that’s how I got started.

And your parents were, “Yes, sell these watches, buy a go-kart?”

No, I’m not sure I ran the idea past them. They were my watches.

An independent teen.

Exactly. Yeah, I was definitely a very independent teen.

But from there, you actually had a career as a driver.

Yeah, for 10 years. I was successful in karting, so then I wanted to pursue my dream of Formula One. It requires sponsorship. My family wasn’t in a position to support me much, certainly by racing standards. My mom gave me her salary for one year, which was enough to move to England, which was very great of her. But not enough to go beyond that. But she was a travel agent, still is a travel agent. She knew someone at TWA who liked racing, so they gave me some airline tickets, which I would then barter and sell, and that’s how I got started in the sponsorship business.

This is a hustle.

I would go to companies and go, “Give me 50 grand to go racing, and not only will I put your logo on my race car and you can have some hospitality, I’ll give 50 grand in airline tickets to match it.”

It was kind of, “That’s a good deal.” That’s how I got started. Then I became obsessed with both my racing career and the need for sponsorship. So I just started calling everyone and just trying to understand, how does it all work? I still carry that with me to this day.

You were running a mini-enterprise. I mean, you were running your own business.

I raced for 10 years, and then when I stopped racing everyone said, “Hey, you’re really good at the sponsorship stuff.” I ended up building what was the world’s largest motorsports agency. Looked after the corporate side of the sport—so the sponsors—because I felt no one was advising them. They’ve got a lot of juice in the sport. They’re the money. So I thought, “Hey, I can get you great deals here.” I had the credibility of understanding the sport, being a racer.