GUEST BLOG // TYLER CENARRUSA OF CENSPORT GRAPHICS

Greetings ColdTrackDays readers! I thought some of you guys might be interested in a little behind the scenes look in the pro racing world. Allow myself to introduce…myself, ha ha (thanks Austin Powers). Anyway, my name is Tyler Cenarrusa and I own and operate Censport Graphics, which is a design and custom paint studio that caters to racers and track junkies alike. When people ask what I do for a living and I say “I am a helmet painter” and they get a funny look on their face it makes me feel weird. To truly understand what this industry is all about you have to be interested in motorsport. Not a lot of people “get it” so that is why I am here, to shed some light on the subject. Although, I assume most of you are already fans of motorsport... [read more]

First, let me give you a little background information of how I even ended up choosing this crazy field as a career. I have always been involved in racing and speed at some point of my life. I used to race down hill on ski’s and mountain bikes here in Idaho. Then when I got my drivers license I ditched the pedal sport and tried out Auto crossing.

I had to purchase a helmet for racing and I always wanted a custom painted helmet. I called a company down in Florida to see if they would do a Juan Montoya replica (being that Montoya is my favorite driver and the sole reason I became interested in motorsports in the first place.) they said it would take a minimum of 500 bucks and 3 months to paint the helmet. I decided to ditch that idea and try to paint it for myself. The end result was ok for a first timer but I was proud of what I did so I posted pictures of the helmet on various forums. I was shocked to get a lot of positive feedback, so I started painting forum members helmets for cheap and my skills improved with every one I did. One of them is our very own Ted Anthony Jr. He was a young budding talented driver and I was a young budding artist. Now, he has a successful racing career and is only going to get better and I own one of the top helmet painting companies in the industry.
      
Anyway, back on topic. At the time I was still studying Graphic Design and painting helmets was mostly for fun and a little extra spending cash. When I graduated with my degree I could not find a Graphic Design job to save my life. I told myself I would give the helmet painting business an honest try and see if I could be successful.
     
Fast-forward 5 years and I am still doing it today! It has taken an incredible amount of work and self-discipline to create a successful business out of something that can be called an unnecessary luxury. No one needs a custom painted helmet for track days, but damn are they fun to look at! I think that doing right by people and making them believe in your product is the only way to thrive in an industry such as this. When you design a custom anything for anybody it has to be special, they have to be able to look at it every time and be pleased with it.
      
A lot of painters have their own style and I think that is very important, but I am not really a fan of cranking out the same kind of “look” over and over and just tweaking a few things here and there. I think that hurts our industry and takes the “custom” part out of it. You don’t ever want to be predictable as a designer.
     
For me, I get really involved with every client to make something that is completely reflectant on what they are trying to say about themselves. For every helmet I do, I want to have some kind of an element in the design that I have never done before. I look at a lot of different painters bodies of work and I take what I like from all of them and I put my own twist on it. That being said, in our niche industry a lot of the top painters are mutual friends. We are a select few who make our living out of painting racers helmets. We for the most part respect each other and we help each other out with new techniques and new found materials. I have made friends with painters all over the world and we sort of have a little bond and fraternity, it is pretty cool actually. When you get well-established painters from other countries giving you props on your work, it is pretty gratifying!
      
But I don’t limit my artistic ability to just helmets; I also paint racing motorcycles and use my Graphic Design background to design race car liveries and logos. You can’t limit yourself to one media and be one-dimensional.
     
So there you go, there is a little inside look at what we do here at Censport Graphics. Now you can understand what is involved when you see drivers on T.V. with their custom painted helmets. If you want to keep following us and check out what is new at Censport you can find us on the web here, and on Facebook here
    
I want to thank Justin Coffey for giving me this opportunity to tell you guys and gals about the world of custom paint and design. And I also can’t forget all my great clients like Ted Anthony Jr. and Joey Atterbury for giving me a shot at making them look good in the cockpit. 

Keep the rubber side down and your foot on the GO pedal

Tyler Cenarrusa - Censport Graphics

Photo(s): Curtis Creager & John Thawley