How does your Fortune 100 technology company become the naming sponsor of a racetrack? If you are David Steward, founder and chairman of World Wide Technology (WWT), it starts by volunteer service with a children’s charity.
As a longtime board member and former board chair of Variety the Children’s Charity of St. Louis, Steward was surprised at a birthday party thrown by his wife Thelma. The husband of a leader at Variety gave him the gift of serving as grand marshal of a major race at Gateway Motorsports Park in Madison, Illinois, just five minutes from downtown St. Louis and covering more than 340 acres. That was how he met Curtis Francois, CEO of Gateway Motorsports.
“I spent time with Curt Francois,” Steward told The American. “I toured the track, went in the pits. I fell in love again with racing, that whole environment.”
That love affair is now greatly intensified with the rebranding of the motorsports facility as “World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway.” The multi-faceted racing venue serves as home to NASCAR, IndyCar and NHRA racing in the St. Louis region, where WWT was founded and is headquartered. The long-term naming rights commitment – for an undisclosed sum – was announced during a press event at the park on Wednesday, April 17.
“The support of WWT will help ensure that our track will compete for North America’s most elite races and offer an innovative and exhilarating fan experience for years to come,” Francois said.
WWT also becomes the official technology partner of the track and will use the venue to advance development programs for the company and its community outreach initiatives. Asked what advanced technology has to do with the grimy sport of motor racing, Steward almost bristled.
“Science, technology and math play a huge part in racing,” Steward said – and he speaks from direct experience.
WWT is the official Technology and Analytics Partner of Richard Petty Motorsports and the primary sponsor of the No. 43 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 team. As part of the partnership, WWT provides data analytics consulting and technology solutions to help improve team performance for Darrell “Bubba” Wallace Jr. and the No. 43 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 team.
“A big part of our sponsorship for Bubba” – whom Steward pointedly referred to as “the only black driver in NASCAR – “is big data. Our big data team, our data scientists, are all involved, from design, to the heat of surfaces, to the tires. We have sensors all through the car measuring data, assessing it throughout the race.”
More generally, Steward said that Francois recognizes what all business leaders know by now: technology is the future, and if you want to have your business in the future, you need to harness technology as it evolves.
“Every company now looks at itself as a technology company first and then a company that happens to be in the area they are in,” Steward said.
That lesson was driven home to his son, David Steward II, whose company Lion Forge is a digital innovator in comic book publishing. The son grew up on comic books – and racing, a passion of his father’s boyhood that was passed to him.
Steward really came alive at the memory of his son’s Father’s Day gift to him last year: a crash course on motor racing at Bondurant Racing School in Chandler, Arizona.
“We actually got to get in race cars and learn how to race!” Steward enthused. “We had two professional drivers and we got our own cars, and we learned how to race. We had the time of our lives. This was at 67 years old!”
David Steward II and Lion Forge also are committed to the partnership with what is now World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway – and Francois sees the long-term benefit to this commitment running in the family.
“David Steward II and his company are actively engaged in the sponsorship,” Francois said, “which speaks to the powerful future potential of our alliance.”
