It’s a long way from Long County to Le Mans.
But the creators of Speedway Pulse Media, Jordan Whitlow and Weyman Houston, will have a presence at one of auto racing’s most venerated events and venues.
Their logo will be on the car of Sam Paley, who is driving in one of the support races at this year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans, which is set for this weekend at the French circuit.
For the duo of Whitlow and Houston, it’s been all accelerator since they launched their venture a year ago.
“It was kind of a dream to give everyone racing media in a more modern way,” Whitlow said.
Houston met Paley last year at Road Atlanta – Houston works races as an official as well – and Paley reached out to them to do videos and photos for his team.
“And it took off,” Houston said.
The duo went to Daytona Speedway for the ROAR weekend and began doing video work for Paley there. From there, they’ve formed a bond with Paley and his alternate driver, Jenson Altzman.
“Now we’re working for him as one of his marketing agents,” Whitlow said.
Their venture into racing media began with the idea of “you can never have too much racing news to break,” Whitlow said.
“We both had a passion for it,” Houston added.
By working races as an official, Houston already knew a number of people. Whitlow’s love for racing began when he was about 4 years old. Once he texted Houston with “I have an idea,” their endeavor is getting traction.
“Our main focus was to get pictures of the cars at the track, do videos. That was the original idea,” Whitlow said. “We can do something bigger – we can interview drivers about their careers.”
They now have nearly 20 driver interviews on their YouTube channel. That includes IMSA, NASCAR and Formula 1 driver Dylan Murry.
“So many drivers know my face and I was able to get a lot of stuff,” Houston said.
“It was pretty cool to see how many drivers remembered Weyman,” Whitlow added.
They’ve also fostered a relationship with British F1 driver Jack Aitken.
“We were going to give a Jack a business card and he said, ‘I don’t need that. I know who you are,’” Whitlow said.
Speedway Pulse Media also has been on the car of Wout Hoffmans, the only racer from the Netherlands to win a race on an American dirt track. They sponsored the young Dutch driver at the famed Chili Bowl, one of the premier events on the midget car racing circuit, and at the Tulsa Shootout.
They’ve also worked with the track owners and drivers at Swainsboro Raceway, which earlier this year hosted the World of Outlaws. One of their interviews was with Bobby Pierce, who won 38 feature races last year in the dirt Late Model series. The World of Outlaws stop at Swainsboro was the first at that track in 12 years, Whitlow said, and Pierce led every lap of the first night of racing.
They’re also well-versed in the knowledge of racing history in the Coastal Empire. Houston has spent a lot of time at the Roebling Road Raceway in Effingham County and they can cite the lore of the American Grand Prize races Savannah hosted early in the 20th century, with a 17-mile loop from Wilmington Island to Skidaway Island that drew several of the top European teams, such as Ferrari and Mercedes- Benz. But to have their logo on a car racing at Le Mans is something they didn’t envision happening so suddenly.
“I never thought something that big would come that early,” Houston said.
“Everybody knows what Le Mans is,” Whitlow said. “It’s phenomenal to be on a car. It’s unreal it came this early. That was our five-year goal, to be on a car at Le Mans. To do it in about five months was pretty insane.”
They’re not making the trip to France this time – there wasn’t enough time – but they hope to get to that course one day. The track, Whitlow pointed out, is eight miles long, so just where to put their cameras will take some extensive legwork.
“So it’s going to be a lot of walking to get in the right spots,” he said.