Making a brand’s first race
weekend feel effortless.

Genesis was arriving at endurance racing for the first time, and its hospitality had to feel as if the brand had hosted race weekends for years.

Genesis Magma Racing brought two hypercars to Circuit of The Americas for its U.S. debut, along with a hand-picked guest list of retailers, VIPs, and motorsport media. Genesis builds its hospitality on Son-nim, the Korean practice of treating every guest as an honored visitor. My job was to turn that philosophy into a program guests could feel at every step of the weekend.

I built the strategy on a parallel from the sport itself. A strong race team shapes the car around the driver, so a strong hospitality program should shape the weekend around the guest.

The journey started at the hotel and brought guests steadily closer to the track.

Guests arrived at the Four Seasons to find a GV60 Magma at the entrance and a private Genesis Lounge inside, with welcome gifts already waiting. On race day they moved to Genesis Club One, the hospitality suite above the pit lane, which served as home base with lounge seating, racing simulators, and a working shop where guests watched their hats and tees being finished.

From there, the program opened onto the paddock. Guests rode hot laps in the GV60 Magma, walked the grid beside the hypercars, toured the team garage, and joined a driver Q&A in the suite before the green flag dropped on six hours of racing.

1. Build a platform instead of a one-off event.

   I proposed a permanent hospitality platform that could travel to future races, with each location adding its own local character. I developed four naming territories for it, and Genesis chose Club One.

2. Turn Son-nim into principles a team could design to.

   Five principles gave the 3D designer and me a shared test for every space and service decision: arrival is felt, performance is made tangible, calm exists within energy, hospitality anticipates, and the brand is expressed through material.

3. Begin the experience before the track.

   The program started at the hotel, so guests felt looked after before they had seen a race car.

4. Make gifting something guests take part in.

   A customization station let guests personalize what they took home, and it became the working hat and screen-printing shop inside the suite.

The pitch renders became the spaces guests used. I developed two directions for the suite with our 3D designer, one bold and performance-led and one warmer and hospitality-led, and the finished suite brought the racing language of the first together with the warm wood of the second.

One question shaped every decision: How would a guest know they mattered at each step of the weekend?

Genesis Club One earned its name.

The suite hosted a hand-picked group of guests across the weekend, and the reviews came in before the final checkered flag.

Billy Rehbock, MotorTrend

The platform was designed to return. Club One and the Son-nim principles can travel to future races, with each location adding its own local character.