Note to sportsman racers aspiring for sponsorships: File this one in the Success Stories to show a potential sponsor. Just over a year after getting involved in the alcohol ranks, Monroe Guest’s TigerFlow Systems has quickly made a name for itself within the sport as primary sponsor of Brad McWilliams’s Top Alcohol Funny Car and as a major associate sponsor of Brandon Lewis’s Top Alcohol Dragster. As the support of TigerFlow has helped both teams become successful in their respective categories, the race teams have brought up their end of the bargain by delivering increased sales. In the business world it’s called ROI or “Return on Investment” and that’s what makes sponsoring race cars and teams a viable business option.
So who is Monroe Guest and what the hell is TigerFlow Systems?
“In a nutshell, basically we get water from the ground floor to the top floor in high rise buildings,” said Guest, the VP and CFO of the company. “We build pump boosters for water systems. We do everything from high rise buildings to sporting arenas to water towers. We don’t sell directly to the public; we have a rep system in place that we sell through.”
Guest has always been a drag racer and fan of the sport, but didn’t make the connection to get involved with a Top Alcohol team until he met Shayne Lawson, a fellow Oklahoman aspiring to move into the Top Alcohol Funny Car ranks.
“I’ve been drag racing since I was in high school,” said Guest. “I started racing motorcycles with my dad since I was in a motorcycle votech program at my school. My dad and I always wanted to run a car, and we finally got the money together and bought my first race car, a ‘72 Camaro. It had a bored out 482 Big Block Chevy that the temperature gauge would go up about as fast as it would run. We ran that car for about two seasons.
“We wanted to get into the ten second zone,” Guest continued. “That was a big deal at the time for us. We ended up getting a ‘72 Vega, and that was the first real ‘fast’ car I had. I got married not too long after high school and ended up selling the car. I actually went and did some sprint car racing, but drag racing was always my first love.”
After establishing himself in the business world, Guest returned to the sport bracket racing on the local level at Tulsa Raceway Park. That is where Guest made the connection with Lawson.
“When I got back into drag racing, I bought one of Jim Yates’ ’03 Grand Am’s,” Guest recalled. “Top Sportsman wasn’t really as big then as it is now, but that’s essentially what it was. We ran a lot of the local bracket stuff with that car.
“In 2005, Shayne was trying to put a program together to get into the Top Alcohol Funny Car class, and approached me at the Noble, Oklahoma, Division 4 race,” Guest continued. “I really didn’t think too much about it, and I told him to put a packet together and get it to me. His father, Kelly, came down and had lunch with me and gave me several different price options. We went with a smaller package to test the waters.”