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I wanted to do a quick mini-review of the book "Racing with Rich Energy: How a Rogue Sponsor Took Formula One For a Ride" by Elizabeth Blackstock and Alanis King.
I think if you are interested in the topic and have not already done a super deep dive then you might find it worth reading. I feel I have somewhat dug into this topic myself and they have clearly gone deeper. Especially when it comes to social media posts by Storey and those related to him. This provides some extra background on what Storey has done and said in his lead up to him appearing on the F1 stage with the Haas sponsorship. It provides a good top to bottom history of Rich Energy and F1 (up through the breakup with Haas and a bit beyond)
There is some interesting insights into what was going on (experience of some of the employees) inside Haas in 2019, but generally from what I would say this is middle/lower level employee perspective (anonymous). And there is some interesting details from a few of Storey's business partners. Mostly in early days of Rich Energy. They also provide a good history of how the product came about.
The problems with the book is that sadly, while the authors did lots of work to find out who the players are and clearly reached out to them and many others, it sounds like few were willing to go on the record and provide details. This ranges from those who started the drink company before Storey showed up, more recent people who are identified in public documents and lastly Haas itself. It really is unfortunate that so few were willing to talk. Maybe it is still just too soon to get people to spill on the internal details. The book could have been so much better if more had just talked. So there remains a bunch of unanswered questions. And sadly no smoking gun. Just a ton of smoke. Enough to know there is a fire somewhere, but you still can't see it just yet. It do find it funny that they were not particularly kind to Peter Windsor and his "interviews" with Storey given the sponsorship Windsor had from Rich Energy and his lack of any serious or hard questions when talking to Storey!
In general, I think this reinforces the general view of Storey and Rich Energy. Storey seems to be one of those guys who is just always working on some hustle to make it big. And he just rotates from one failed attempt to the next until he makes something work. There is nothing wrong with that. He also seems to be decent enough of a self promotor and salesman that he is able to talk people into working with/funding him. I don't think the book really is able to expose exactly where the money comes from, but it sounds like Storey probably just was able to convince various people to fund him. I suspect one reason many will not talk is that they probably are embarrassed to admit being part of the entire circus and were part of funding it. It also sounds like he bought title sponsorship with Haas for not much money. And even then he didn't pay it all.
The concept of the energy drink is probably a sound one. And he has hit upon something that can work. But he is also his own worst enemy and probably at this point no longer particularly useful or helpful to move the company forward. He seems to just really have a general strategy of "fake it until you make it". But the problem seems to be that he just can't make the transition over from "100% bluster" to "actual businessman". He seems to have a massive history of just pulling content from elsewhere and claiming it as his (Whyte bike logo, images on social media). It sounds like most everything he posts is not real or is some massive stretching of the truth (is anyone shocked?) This also includes claims of market penetration, sales, etc. That in the end, you just get confirmation he is as he appears. And example of the "Peter Principle" in which someone has risen to a level in which his incompetency prevents him from moving further.
As to why he and the business continues to limp along? As I say it above, as a business, Rich Energy probably has legs. Whatever remains of his partners probably knows they can extract something out of it. I think that is why you have all of the recent drama around distribution rights and sponsorship of other racing efforts. But at it's core, it sounds like Storey has full control over some key parts (not clear what that is). Maybe it is the ownership of the IP or something like that. So any partner who might want to eject him can't. The last attempt didn't work. I suspect Storey also has no interest in cashing out and leaving as this remains his ticket to relevancy and staying in the public eye. His ego will not allow him to let the business be competently run by someone else. The negative drama he brings is probably just part of the cost of doing business for them.
Richard
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