McLaren CEO Zak Brown Still Gets FOMO About Race Cars

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

How much money are we talking about here?

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

This is not a small amount.

I went to the top of the list, which was his and hers, which comes out of my mouth, what does a 13-year-old want with the best Cartier watches?

Then I went back to the Long Beach Grand Prix in 1987 with a friend from high school, I met Mario Andretti, and I was in awe. Now I wanted to enter the race, and I asked him, “How do you start?” He said, “Karting.”

By karting, do you mean go-karting?

Go-karting, yes. It’s a minor league, if you will, although it’s very difficult. And I thought, “Ah, I know how I can pay for this. I went and sold them, I got money.”

He didn’t ask me, “Why do you have these watches?” Today they probably wouldn’t pass the KYC test at the pawn shop. So I sold them, bought a kart, and that’s how I started.

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

No, I’m not sure I chased them. They were my watches.

An independent boy.

Exactly. Yes, I was an independent teenager.

But from there, you had a job as a driver.

Yes, for 10 years. I was good at karting, so I wanted to fulfill my dream of Formula One. It needs help. My family has not been able to support me much, certainly during the competitions. My mother gave me her salary for one year, which was enough to move to England, which was too big for her. But it is not enough to go beyond that. But he was a tour operator, still a tour operator. He knew someone at TWA who loved racing, so he gave me airline tickets, which I would trade and sell, and that’s how I started the sponsorship business.

This is difficult.

I’d go to companies and go, “Give me 50 grand to go racing, and I’ll not only put your logo on my race car and you can host, I’ll give you 50 grand in plane tickets to go with it.”

It was like, “That’s a good job.” That’s how I started. Then I became obsessed with my racing career and the need to support me. So I just started calling everyone and just trying to understand, how does this all work? I still carry that to this day.

You run a small business. I mean, you run your own business.

I raced for 10 years, and after I stopped racing everyone said, “Hey, you’re very good at sponsorships. Then I started building an organization that was the biggest in motorsports in the world. I was in charge of the corporate side of the sport – so the sponsors – because I saw that nobody was advising them. They have a lot of water in the sport. It’s money. So I thought, “Hey, I can get you a good deal here.” I was a reliable person who understood the sport, being a racer.