>>4443887
Stick to cameras, your analogies are stupid

You cannot start a racing career without being groomed from elementary school not different than any other athlete. They do karts and will get scouted once they turn teenagers by professional teams like Andretti Racing, Red Bull, etc.

Semipros just like the photographers you mention run literally ANYTHING that gives contingency (aka: it pays for their racing career, just like Sony/Canon give photographers working for Getty or AP free cameras). Mazda for example hands out contingency money like candy. So did Mini and Dodge at other times. Racing is expensive so those manufacturers handed out contingency to lure professionals into running their cars and also would build their cars to fit a certain class (IE Base model Minis for H Stock SCCA)

Amateurs like you or me (yes YOU) run literally anything they like unless it's a spec series where the car they can enter has to meet a certain class. Nissans are used very very often in amateur motorsports (drifting and time attack) but when they had contingency money through Nismo and factory efforts outside of America (think Australia Bathurst 1000) you saw stuff like Skyline GTRs and Pulsars being raced by professionals who were getting paid to try out the new untested cars over Holdens and Fords. Just like a Pentax shooter is using his camera to shoot photos.