A Brand New Day

Ahh yes, the start of another week.

Typically, I'd hate Mondays. I mean, when you consider it, for the majority of my nineteen-and-a-half years here in this world, I spent a good number of days in school. Generally, Mondays were days of reckoning for incomplete homework that I had gotten on Friday. Yes, it pretty much sucked - but of course, that was then. This is now.

Ever since I got that first e-mail back in December, things have never been the same. It honestly doesn't even feel like it's March. Come to think of it, I don't even remember there being an off-season for me - which is fine, of course. I'd usually go into withdrawals with no races to watch during the winter, but once I got that e-mail, things changed...boy, did they ever...

Now, Mondays mean the beginning of a new week with all sorts of possibilities. Although it's uncommon to hear from or about new clients, it happens more often now than it did this time a year ago. It's probably a good thing we're not getting swamped right now, though. We've got a good balance right now between the clients requesting a design and the turnover time for a completed design.

Truthfully, if we were getting swamped, I would be a bit more nervous than I am right now. I tell everybody that my mind's been going about 9000 miles per hour ever since December - which is cruising speed for me nowadays - and I can't imagine it going any faster at this point. Not to say I wouldn't mind it of course, but I think we're in a good spot with the clients we have at the moment.

It's been quite the learning experience, though. My design team (Andrew, Matt, Jake, and Manuel) have learned a lot in the way of doing designs and trying new things with them. In the past three months, I've seen a certain progression in all of our talents, which is something we take a lot of pride in. I've always made a point of never settling on one single method of designing cars. For example, I try different approaches - simple, two-or-three-tone schemes with minimal lines and "swooshes" (I think that's the technical term for them) - for one scheme, then go a little crazy with the next, using patterns and the like.

There's only so many ways you can do a car that can be accurately replicated on vinyl - and that's been the biggest challenge. It's one thing to do a paint scheme for a sim racer - you don't really have any limitations except your imagination and the template you're working with. In real life, though, it's a whole different ball game. It really is a challenge to come up with something that will pop on the race track.

Not to worry though. The more the Coast 2 Coast name gets out into the racing community, the more business we'll get - and the more business we get, the more we'll hopefully be able to do in order to meet the demand.

What I want to do, and what we can't do right now, is be able to do vinyl work and wraps for teams. Obviously when you're in the ground floor like C2C is, you work with the tools you've got. I want to be able to have an office / shop complex somewhere in North Carolina that's capable of housing our design team and a fully-staffed vinyl team.

It may not happen quite the way I imagine it, but what I'd love to be able to provide is the ability for a team to bring their car and leave it in the shop, have our design team work on several concepts for the consideration of the sponsors and team, then take the approved design and put it to vinyl, wrap it, and have the team pick it up within a week. That's probably what most design companies do to begin with, but I want to do it quickly and efficiently. In NASCAR, there isn't much that stays the same. I can't tell you how many times I've seen a car painted one way on Jayski and then a week later, it's something completely different. Things change quickly. You have to adapt just as fast in order to stay on top.

Being the age that I am, I don't know a lot about running a business. I just use common sense and the convictions and beliefs that my faith in God provide. I would not be at this point in my life were it not for the provision of a loving God. I know that my mentioning God can put some people off, and I'm not going to make this a blog about God (though I will more than likely mention Him quite a bit), but that's my belief. I conduct myself in a way that a Christian businessman ought to - fairly and prudently.

Well, it's 5:26 AM now. I'm a bit of a night owl, but even I have my limits - so with that, I'm calling it a night and going to bed.

Look for more later.

Guy Driggers