THE WORK & PLAY MOTOR RACES: A WEALTH AND WELLNESS OPPORTUNITY FOR ALL.

 Strong strides and opportunities in leaps and bounds are all I see in the upcoming Work & Play Promotions motor racing spectacle planned for the 8th of April, 2023 in Ilara-Mokin Ondo State.

Worldwide, the Motorsports culture celebrates "the good life" and the Ondo Auto rally as an offshoot will celebrate "life in Ilara fast lane."

For the very first time, I had the honour of sitting in, on a committee meeting of a Motorsports planning event. It was an eye-opener, a witnessing of potentially an opportunistic breaking through on a virgin ground sporting pageant in Nigeria. I believe strongly that the Ondo State government felt the momentum and grabbed it. The indication of how the importance of Motorsports business was to the Ondo identity was not only the agreement that it was first staged in the state capital several months back, but that the endorsement by the political elites led by the governor made sure that the race event takes place in the iconic and serene "no go area," and exclusively reserved government offices area of the capital with a backdrop of the governor's office, and then flagged off by the governor himself accompanied by his key functionaries.

All sports are sustained by intensive commercialisation and Motorsport is no exception. In today’s climate of relentless competition for major public and private space investments that contribute to profits and economic growth, spending on image-making and public relations is as important as all other equally important spendings. So, just like the political elites in Ondo State have ventured, other states and business interests ought to see and piggyback on Work & Play Motorsport as an important engine of growth and profitability. Corporations and big businesses from around the world have seen this and apparently embraced the idea that Motorsport is an international sports event that is essentially a vehicle that helps in projecting a “world-class image” of their businesses. Therefore, as today's businesses are under assault from all sides of challenging economic and security, etc forces in the country, it is my submission that it is prime and crucial for our companies from banks, the internet companies to the oil and other industries to invest in Motorsport events that are held in the major public spaces of our cities and non-urban areas as the 6th upcoming Motorsports event in Ilara. Why so?

Any positive messages and impacts associated with Motorsport are accentuated wherever in the world these events are situated. Community public spaces such as the exits into Ilara-Mokin, through the highway, and the roads and roundabouts leading to the golf course, are a window into the Ilara community's soul and public culture. They present a framed vision of social life in the community, a vision both for those who live there and important ground for those visiting to interact in an open public space, such as commuters passing by the highway and the tourists motor buffs who would fling to Ilara-Mokin to be part of the days’ exhibitions.

In this sense, cities and urban public spaces have a great deal of symbolic power. The staging of such an event is an important aspect of image-making for the sports, but more importantly, for the community involved, as it concerns uplifting and positive image-making. The involvement and participation of the community as exhibited by the political elite confer legitimacy on these shows, and by extension, on the messages, any company that buys into the vision, propagates.  The more strategic, dominant and visible the messages are in the public spaces, the more they are seen and read by citizens and tourists alike as indicators of the priorities of that community and its culture.    Thus, when a community's public spaces are used to host major Motorsports exhibitions and their attendant commercial interests, this may have the effect of not only positively elevating the commercial interests of the company sending out the message, but also communicating a message that may impact on public health and social welfare matters.

But it is not only the economy’s commercial welfare that the Motorsport spectacle impacts. The impact on the health of the athletes and participants is equally as huge. Any major sports event (inclusive of the upcoming Ondo motor rally) will have a range of wellness impacts.  However, the very nature of motor racing events, and their staging tends to render significant effects likely more on those athletes in the driver's seats than all others.  In contrast to some other major sports events, athletes in Motorsports require special health checks and attention.

Imagine being a race athlete with increased heart rates at maximum endurance, sustained for extended periods of 60-120 minutes, and accompanied by an adrenaline rush during that time. Imagine a driver losing 5–10% of body weight during a race because of dehydration. Or, imagine all such grave issues as death, accidents, blunder, slip up, etc all of which you may encounter and try to avoid in real life being tackled in seconds with your brain having to process doing so in seconds, and in a vehicle moving at 150 to 300 km/h. Needless to say that such athletes need to compete in performance-related fitness including; agility, balance, speed control, coordination, and quick reaction time, added to the health components that include, cardiovascular fitness, built-up muscular strength and endurance, flexibility, right body composition, etc. So, it is a masterstroke in getting to know, the Ilara-Mokin spectacle will have present on standby an ambulance with doctors and nurses, the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), and Defibrillators, with all Work & Play staff trained in basic life support (BLS) skills.

Today, Motorsports technology means vehicles are becoming faster, stronger and more efficient and as these innovations grow, greater efforts are being made to have motor racing more accessible thanks to multiple viewing platforms such as real-time streaming, smartphones capture, and social media up and downloads, in addition to on-demand services. Innovative strides are also being made to have younger people more interested than the previous generation in the introduction of virtual race gaming to accompany the shows in the sport. More audiences are being drawn by the adrenaline rush that comes with watching high-speed vehicles race. Besides being able to watch the action, fans also get to interact with the large crowd of buffs and it is, always, very social. These and many more are a wide variety of reasons why Motorsport is so exciting and popular and therefore the need for more investments by States and private investors in the sport.