Return On Racing Powered by Vaucher Analytics
Return on Racing is the podcast where motorsport meets money.
Hosted by motorsports business strategist David Vaucher, each episode breaks down how racing teams, sponsors, series, and sim racers can improve sponsorship ROI, manage rising costs, and build sustainable growth models in a rapidly changing industry.
Return On Racing Powered by Vaucher Analytics
The $3,000 Helmet: An IndyCar Case Study in Compliance-Driven Cost Inflation
Full results for this analysis are available on the Vaucher Analytics Insights page.
In racing safety is mandatory, a moral imperative you could even say.
But at the financial level, meeting this moral imperative is costly for teams.
In this episode of Return On Racing, we rewind to the 1977 Indy 500 broadcast to extract a rare dataset: a full list of driver safety gear with prices. Then we bring those numbers forward to 2025 actual prices for IndyCar-approved equipment.
The results?
You'll have to tune in to find out!
This episode quantifies what safety regulations are really costing teams, and why these figures are likely just the beginning.
Safety will always be non-negotiable. But understanding its true cost is the first step toward managing it.
Because if safety costs are up this much, what about everything else?
Inside:
- The hidden math behind modern safety gear
- How regulation-driven inflation compounds team fragility
- What teams can (and must) do to stay financially viable without cutting corners
Contact the show: contact@vaucheranalytics.com
Brought to you by the Motorsports Sponsorship Accelerator, the most cutting-edge resource to help you learn how to develop meaningful sponsorship relationships.
To contact Return On Racing, please send an email to contact@vaucheranalytics.com