Energy drink copy-cat?

From Jayski:

Veteran off-road racer Kenny Freeman of Henderson is sponsoring the #70 Nationwide Series car driven by Shelby Howard in Saturday's Sam's Town 300 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Freeman recently entered a business decision for his new venture Race Fuel, an all natural energy drink that will be available in stores by the end of the month. "The construction business has been so bad for the past two years that I decided to start another venture," explained Freeman, whose family has been in the carpet business for 50 years. (ML Motorsports), see the paint scheme of the car on the #70 team paint schemes page.(3-1-2011)

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Permalink Reply by NIKAL on March 2, 2011 at 2:19pm

They were giving the drink away at the finish line at the Snore Battle at Primm race a few weeks ago. The Freeman's race with Snore and have been on the Snore Series board of directors in the years past.

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Permalink Reply by Brian Smith on March 2, 2011 at 2:40pm

Love Speed Energy but it's just hard 2 enter the market by yourself. RG needs 2 use small independent distributors that will work harder 2 push his product. It's used all the time in the chip and snack business even Red Bull uses it.It would be nice 2 see Speed Energy tucks around your local town.He doesn't need to go after Wave he needs to knock out NOS and Rock Star. Race on RG

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Permalink Reply by NIKAL on March 2, 2011 at 3:08pm

In order for SPEED to be able to compete against the big energy drink companies, SPEED will have to eventually have to partner with the big distributors in the US and around the world. I think SPEED has the potential and it will only be time before that happens. Monster is owned by Hanson's Soda and uses Anheuser-Busch in the U.S and Pepsico in Canada and a few other countries. Coca Cola is the distributor for Monster in Australia and New Zealand. Rock Star uses Pepsico in the U.S and in a few countries. This is why you see those brands logo's on the delivery trucks around town.

I dont know about RedBull, but I do know the Coors distributor (Crest Beverage) in San Diego / So Cal is the exclusive distributor for Red Bull in this region. The owner is an off-road racer and said he he could not bring in SPEED without losing RedBull, and that was not happening!

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Permalink Reply by Kevin on March 2, 2011 at 3:56pm

There will probably always be upstarts in that industry. But if the product is good and the marketing is good it should sell. It is hard to believe, but I don't doubt it, that Pepsico would want to handle anything but their product, Amp. Surely the long buck is in their own drink?

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Permalink Reply by NIKAL on March 2, 2011 at 4:14pm

Several years back I had some sponsorship from Sobe-No Fear energy drink. In my quest to get them I learned quite a bit about the industry and when No-Fear sponsored us, I learned even more about No-Fear, Sobe and the drink market. Sobe-No Fear was produced and distributed by Pepsico. To be honest it was not a perfect match and No Fear felt the same way. Sobe did not understand that "No Fear" lifestyle. So when the No-Fear guys would have an idea and pitch it to Sobe and then Pepsico, many times they were told no. Some ideas they came up with ended up on other Pespi house brand drinks. One idea I remember was the camouflage No Fear can. Pepsi felt it was to militant and did not think it would sell. Monster later came out with a limited one and it sold well.