In addition to hosting the Daytona Prototypes and Acxiom GT race teams of the Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series, the Oct. 10 Grand Prix of Miami also featured the grand finale of the Chip Foose/Pirelli Edition Ford Flex Giveaway.
Weekly winners in the season-long sweepstakes were treated to a day at the races, and then gathered by the stage to take the chance that the key they drew for the contest would sound the alarm on the coveted custom Foose Flex.
Bruce Winn of Hubbard, Ore. was the big winner. Winn won by pulling the correct key that fired up the tricked out Ford, and he now owns “the coolest Flex in the country” as described by Rafael Navarro III, Pirelli’s director of media communications and motorsports.
“It’s a looker,” says Winn. “It is a real looker. Chip did a really nice job on it.”
The tune-in giveaway promotion was conducted this year in concert with the Speed Channel and Grand-Am. It required participating viewers to locate the “secret word” broadcast on-screen during a Grand-Am Rolex Series race, and then they had to fill in an online entry form for a chance to win the race drawing.
Each race produced one winner, and then the 10 contestants from the 2009 race season were flown to Miami from all over the country to have a chance at claiming the Foose-designed Ford Flex in a special Saturday morning trackside contest.
Winn’s win was a sweet one.
“I felt lucky when I drew number seven,” recounts Winn, who is currently driving the Flex back home to Oregon with his significant other Patty Sweet. “I thought that was a great omen – lucky number seven. I could not believe it. I watched Chip’s video of what he did to make this beautiful vehicle about 15 times, and I sure wanted to win. Now it has happened and I can’t believe it. I am really excited.”
Foose signed the title of the Flex over to Winn right then and there. The trip back to Oregon from Miami is 3,400 miles, and Winn and Sweet are fully expecting to draw a lot of attention along the way.
“This type of promotion is only possible if you have great partners, as there are many details to sort out,” Navarro points out.
“I cannot say enough about Chip and his willingness to get involved considering his very busy schedule, Grand-Am for their attention to detail and execution, and to Speed for the wonderful job they did in putting this all together and getting it on-air,” he says.
“We would like to thank all of the people involved in making this promotion a success,” notes Navarro, “and we couldn’t be happier that Mr. Winn is ecstatic about his new ride.”
For more information, visit www.us.pirelli.com.
