High-Speed Chase

Bradenton real estate attorney Tim Grogan is riding shotgun in one of the more unique side-business ventures on the Gulf Coast.

Unique and expensive.

Grogan is the lead investor behind Grogan Motorsports Inc. Grogan already has put more than $350,000 into the business, which includes a partnership with a professional NASCAR driver. The money comes from savings.

Grogan and his wife, Vicki Gipson, formed Grogan Motorsports primarily for their 16-year-old son, Andrew Gipson. In fact, the company is the first step in Grogan and Vicki Gipson's ambitious attempt to build a marketing machine around their son, an up-and-coming driver in NASCAR's high-level junior racing circuits.

“We're a new team with a young driver,” says Grogan, who works in Bradenton, St. Petersburg and Venice. “We're looking to get corporate sponsors who want to get in from the beginning.”

Grogan hopes the venture will benefit from good timing: Trevor Bayne, the 20-year-old NASCAR driver who became the youngest person to win the Daytona 500 Feb. 20, is just four years older than Gipson. And as Gipson hopes to do, Bayne built up his skills by competing in a NASCAR minor league.

Vicki Gipson has met with several potential national and regional sponsors in the past few months. “This is a great experience for Andrew,” Vicki Gipson says, “but it's a lot of money.”

Creating a NASCAR team involves diverse costs. For Grogan Motorsports, the list already includes an entertainment lawyer, a media consultant, crew uniforms and a race hauler. The team also includes a Facebook fan page and a Twitter account. There's even a paid announcer who calls Gipson's races on live feeds over Skype.

Grogan, though, is confident his son will provide a return on the investment. Grogan also raced cars, recreationally at DeSoto Speedway in East Manatee County. He allowed Gipson to drive a racing truck three years ago at a track in Charlotte County. “Instantly we saw the kid has some talent,” says Grogan. “But his talents very quickly outgrew the truck.”

By the time the teenager was 15, in 2009, he was racing for real in the Fastruck Pro-Touring Series, where he was named Rookie of the Year. Gipson is a junior at Manatee High School.

Andrew Gipson's big racing moment — so far — came last year when he received a call from Barney McRae, a NASCAR team owner who raced professionally in the early 1990s. McRae and his team at Milton, Vt.-based Motion Racing scouted Gipson at some races. They liked what they saw. McRae invited Gipson to Vermont for a tryout late last year.

Gipson won over McRae. So much so that McRae formed a partnership with Gipson and Grogan Motorsports. The deal allows the teams to combine forces to find sponsors. It also provides Gipson an opportunity to race in higher-level NASCAR sponsored events.

“I'm confident he has what it takes to excel as a driver,” McRae says. “He's a smart young man, he wants to learn and he has a desire to succeed.”

Next up for Gipson: He plans to race in events later this year in NASCAR's K&N Pro Series, a high-level minor league circuit.