Centric Parts Returns from AAPEX with Two New Trophies

Left to right – Centric Parts Mike Musso, AIA Vice Chairman Thomas Beer, Centric Parts Dan Lelchuk

Earlier this month, the Centric Parts team was in Las Vegas for the annual AAPEX and SEMA Shows - and just like last year - the team came home with a pair of trophies. Both awards were presented to Centric's own Dan Lelchuk and Mike Musso by the Auto International Association (AIA), which "promotes trade in automotive products between the international automotive community and the North American aftermarket."

The first award was given for Best Advertising Campaign for the print and video ad series we did this year educating our customers about the extensive research and development, engineering, testing and quality assurance that goes into our brake pads, rotors and calipers. The complete series is available here - and we encourage everyone to bookmark the page. It makes a great sales tool and resource. 

The second award was presented for Best Import Performance Product. That one went to our StopTech Touring Big Brake Kit for the 2006-2013 Volkswagen GTI . These new StopTech Touring Big Brake Kits (BBK) bring high performance braking to a whole new market sector. They include the same ultra-stiff patented StopTech calipers, StopTech Street Performance Brake Pads and StopTech Stainless Steel Brake Lines used in the traditional StopTech Performance BBK - but in place of the 2-pc AeroRotors we normally use in our traditional BBK, they use more affordable larger diameter 1-piece StopTech Sport Rotors that still offer greatly increased performance over stock rotors.

In awarding the trophies, AIA’s Martin Gold noted Centric’s multiple wins over the years and that the wins have covered a wide range of categories, “This company is consistently providing support for AIA and these awards, and they always stand out in whatever category they enter.”

It was another great show and the team is already looking forward o 2014!

Centric Returns From AAPEX/SEMA with Several Honors

This year's SEMA and AAPEX shows may be over, but the Centric Parts team is still celebrating our 2012 participation. Not only did these shows give us a chance to meet with customers - old and new - and to show off our latest products and catalogs, but the shows were also very memorable for other reasons too.

During the Auto International Association (AIA) Import Products Awards ceremony held at the Sands Convention Center, Centric's President Dan Lelchuk accepted two awards on behalf of the company. The 2013 Brake Systems Catalog was deemed the best of the bunch, and the new Posi Quiet with Hardware line took the overall highest honor in being named Best Product. Centric was the only company present to claim wins in two categories this year. 

Over at the Las Vegas Convention Center, StopTech and Power Slot were well represented, mounted on a dozen or more high profile show cars this year. One of them even won a top award at SEMA. A StopTech supported project earned the Gran Turismo Award for Best Truck or SUV.

The project was a very special Toyota Sequoia made over into a family dragster by the team of newly crowned NHRA Top Fuel Champion Antron Brown. Brown was competing against three other Toyota sponsored racers in the Toyota Racing Dream Build Challenge. His 650-hp, five-seat 'DragQuoia' was the favorite of video game creator Kazunori Yamauchi, who will feature the creation in an upcoming edition of the Gran Turismo game series. The DragQuoia was also chosen in several top ten SEMA show car lists by major publications like Car and Driver and Motor Trend.

In addition, the StopTech/Power Slot booth featured one of only three brand new 2013 SRT Vipers at the show. The one in our booth (top) was a black GTS model with the optional Track Package, featuring StopTech AeroRotors as an upgrade to the standard discs fitted to lesser models. The car received a ton of attention from attendees and the media, as it should. This newly updated version of the iconic American super car features an 8.4-liter V10 producing 640 hp and 600 ft-lbs of torque. With a price starting at just under $100,000, it is actually quite a bargain too, competing head to head with Porsches and Ferraris costing up to three times as much.

Another award that came in just before our trip to Las Vegas was the Toyota Quality Alliance Gold Supplier Award - a huge honor. The Gold Supplier Award is presented to top Toyota parts and accessories suppliers who have consistently demonstrated their commitment to product development, product quality, operational quality and product support. As a long-standing technical partner with Toyota, Centric products have shown up on several Toyota, Lexus and Scion models, including the newest Scion FR-S sports car that features a StopTech Trophy Race Big Brake Kit on its World Challenge GTS race car.

In fact, StopTech BBKs were found on several versions of this hot new sports car - from tuners like Perrin, AEM, Hotchkis, Injen, DC Sports, Outperformance, Five Axis, Forgestar, Rocket Bunny, and more. In addition, we saw StopTechs on Mustangs, BMWs, Audis, Porsches, Camaros, Hyundais, Acuras, Subarus and others.

One of our favorite StopTech moments this year came when internet automotive personality Matt Farah of The Smoking Tire and other shows, chose a StopTech Trophy kit as the brake component for his dream SEMA build, where he scoured the millions of convention hall square feet to find his overall favorite engine, suspension, supercharger, wheels, tires…and brakes. With every brake company represented at the show, that was quite an honor. 

Prepping for AAPEX and SEMA 2012

October is always a really busy time here at Centric Parts. With the biggest aftermarket shows of the year coming at the end of the month in Las Vegas, the whole team is energized to get everything in order for AAPEX and SEMA, two different shows with distinct flavors.


Both shows are important for us. AAPEX is where we will be discussing our full line of replacement brake and clutch components, including our complete range of brake pads from OE and PosiQuiet to Fleet and Street Performance. It's also where we have been honored for our contributions to the  industry on many occasions, and we hope to add to that list of honors this year when the AAIA announces their import products of the year.

SEMA gives us a chance to show off our high performance and racing offerings, including our BBKs, Sport Kits and our new fluid line, as well as letting people see how our new racing friction will allow us to start offering complete racing system solutions for a variety of different racing disciplines. We'll have products on display as well as mounted on several high profile customer cars scattered throughout the Las Vegas Convention Center.

This year we will be on several notable show cars, including a few manufacturer entries. In fact, the StopTech booth will be featuring a pretty exciting new model from a major manufacturer - one which features StopTech brakes as part of the factory's ultimate brake upgrade for the car. It's a car we are very proud of and one that we think will generate a lot of traffic in our booth.

We'll also be conspicuously present on a few other hot new cars that are winning tons of magazine covers and earning a lot of praise from the automotive world. Think small and light, as well as small and powerful and BIG and powerful.

We plan to cover both shows in our social media over the course of the week, with photos, posts and tweets flying out of both locations daily. If you haven't subscribed to our YouTube channel, liked us on Facebook or followed us on Twitter yet, you're missing out. Be sure to do so before next Tuesday when the shows open and thousands of show cars are unveiled. We'll be your eyes and ears throughout it all so stay tuned.

And if you happen to be at the shows this year, please stop by and say hello. Our AAPEX booth number is 8805 this year and StopTech will be in booth 23057 at SEMA.

2011 SEMA Show Shines Spotlight on Centric

Besides our Centric Parts President winning Person of theYear from the AIA, a number of vehicles wearing Centric, Power Slot and StopTech brake components took home honors at SEMA 2011, held in Las Vegas the first week of November. Although we are still a relatively young company, it was interesting to note the number of high profile projects that featured our products.

Take the yellow and blue Turner Motorsport Grand-Am GS Champion BMW M3, for instance. It was the vehicle we chose to display in our booth as it really represents what StopTech is all about. Building brake systems for high performance street use and production-based racing applications is our forte. Whether it was a street-driven sportscar or one that consistently wins races, we were the top choice for many show cars this year.

 

Very high profile vehicles wearing our brakes included the 1,004-hp Bisimoto Honda Civic Si that was best in class, the Mishimoto 370Z live art car project that had tons of celebrities and regular folks alike coloring on it with sharpies in one of the most visited interactive displays at the show and Mark Stielow's "Red Devil" Optima Ultimate Street Car Camaro.

 

The major manufacturers at the show also spotlighted some of our products. Mazda used our brakes on its 20th anniversary MX-5 Super20 concept, the best-in-class Scion iQ was the one done by Jon Sibal and it prominently featured our BBK, Toyota is using our brakes on its Daytona 500 Pace Car Camry, and Lexus showed off its new F-Sport GS, plus a Five Axis version of that all-new GS as well as a slick CT200h Hybrid - all wearing brakes done by StopTech.

Just up the steps from our own booth was the Ford display, which this year celebrated 100 years of Ford Racing. Amidst the legendary Ford powered race cars on display was a large selection of Ford Focus tuner cars and concepts. While every one of them had some great details, the two that got singled out by Ford in its design awards presentation were the two wearing StopTechs - the COBB Tuning race car and the Roush street car.

 

There was a huge selection of Mustangs at SEMA again this year, but a few that stood out were the new Petty Mustang, the design award-winning CorteX '66 Mustang Optima Ultimate Street Car in the massive Spectre booth, a Magnuson Supercharger Mustang, Paul Brown's World Challenge GTS championship winning car and the Trufiber Shelby GT500 Mustang - all wearing StopTech components.

 

Besides the awesome Turner BMW in our booth, we also had StopTech components on plenty of other notable show vehicles, including a grassroots NASA ST-2 E46 BMW M3 driven by Ron Ballard  plus a Formula Drift Nissan 350Z driven by up-and-comer Patrick Mordaunt, an old-school Bisimoto Porsche 911 Turbo, Hasport Motorsports Eibach CR-Z, a wicked looking AMS SR750 Porsche 997 Turbo, a slick Platte Forme E92 M3 street car, the old/new ICON Bronco and a Nissan Armada that drew eyes straight to its StopTech BBK due to its clean design and massive open wheels that spotlighted the brakes nicely.

2011 was another great year for StopTech, Power Slot and Centric Parts at SEMA. Besides all of the great show cars wearing our products, we also introduced our new line of high performance and racing brake fluid, our all-new StopTechwebsite, Centric high carbon rotors, and announced that our patented AeroRotorsare now 100 percent Made in the USA. Thanks to all of you who stopped by to say hello, and to all of you customers who made the choice to use Centric products on your street, track and show cars.

SEMA Day 3 Recap - Trophy Kits, Farewell to Booth Truck and more

The news of the day 3 at SEMA was the announcement that StopTech Trophy Sport Big Brake Kits, which were rolled out at SEMA 2009 for a limited number for applications, are now available for the over 700 platforms that StopTech’s traditional BBKs are available for. 

The Trophy Sport Big Brake Kit is a street-friendly version of the company’s race-winning, track-only Trophy Big Brake Kit.  Only a few modifications separate the StopTech Trophy Sport Big Brake Kit from the Trophy Big Brake Kit, which premiered at the start of the 2009 race season and has since helped drivers capture checkered flags and set records on tracks across the country.

StopTech’s Trophy Sport Big Brake Kits can perform under heavy track day conditions, but can still be driven as daily transportation without the increased maintenance requirements associated with dedicated racing components.

At the end of day 3, the StopTech crew had to say good-bye to the Speed Technologies Unlimited 2 class off road racing vehicle on that had been a resident of the booth all week.  This surprisingly wide vehicle is heading across town to be piloted by Jeff Ward in the next stop of the 2010 Lucas Oil Off Road Racing Series this weekend.  The truck sports StopTech Off-Road Big Brake Kits based on the Trophy Big Brake Kit design with additional features added for off-road use to deliver stopping performance in harsh off road environments.

The Identify This Car SEMA Challenge continued over at www.Facebook.com/StopTech.  Eliot E kept his firm grip on the lead while no clear candidate for runner up has emerged yet.  Players will be tasked with identifying the make and model of cars parked on the SEMA exhibit from a single close up photo.  Several rounds are planned for Day 4 so it might be a photo finish!

Day 2 at SEMA: Cool Brakes and Hot Cars plus Touring BBKs debut

Day 2 of SEMA 2010 brought the big news about a whole new line of Big Brake Kits from StopTech.  The company’s new Touring Big Brake Kits deliver StopTech performance and innovation at an entry level price.  You can read the full press release on the Centric Parts site.

These kits combine StopTech’s legendary, patented, colored ST-40 four piston with a one piece performance rotor enhanced with Power Alloy for improved stopping power and superior resistance to cracking in performance driving situations.  A set of StopTech street performance brake pads and other extras round out the package.  These kits are a perfect upgrade on a budget.

The Identify This Car SEMA Challenge continues with StopTech’s  Facebook fans racing to identify the make and model of varios cars from a close up photo of one vehicle detail.  Eliot E bolted ahead of the pack during the day, so we have added a present that will go to the runner up.  Jump in and have fun at www.facebook.com/stoptech.

Day 2 also saw many of the StopTech equipped vehicle on the exhibit floor grab some media attention.

The star of the show appears to be the new Honda CR-Z.  Motor Trend, Inside Line, Auto Guide and more stopped by the Honda booth to profile the CR-Zs there.  It so happens that StopTech’s Big Brake Kit for the CR-Z was just named Best Performance Product of 2010, so as expected a few cars at the Honda booth are sporting StopTech logos on the brakes.  Other have Honda’s HPD brakes on them.  We wonder who designed and engineered those?  ;-) 

Check out the links…

Auto Guide looks at CR-Z

Inside Line and the CR-Z

Three from Motor Trend... Post 1,  Post 2,  Post 3

Mazdaspeed used a slotted StopTech Stage 2 Kit with StopTech pads on its 16-in-wheel MX-5 and got the attention of Inside Line and Car and Driver.

This Mazda3 sedan from SEMA 2009 was shown again, as well as Tri-Point’s Redline Time Attack Mazda3, featuring StopTech brakes. Motor Trend was all over it with this post plus this post.

Auto Guide also took a look at this cool Lexus CT200h with StopTech brakes repainted as F-Sport by the builder.

Stay tuned for another update tomorrow, featuring the third and final announcement from Centric Parts and StopTech for SEMA 2010.

Getting packed for Vegas...

Centric Parts is heading out to Las Vegas next week for Automotive Aftermarket Industry Week 2010. The company will be exhibiting Centric, StopTech and Power Slot innovations at both SEMA in the Las Vegas Convention Center (booth #22761) and AAPEX at the Sands Convention Center (booth #9220)

There will be three big announcements next week from Centric and its divisions - one a day starting Tuesday when the exhibit floors open.

For those who can't make it, there will be plenty of coverage, and some fun extras too, across all of the Centric Parts and StopTech social media channels including The StopTech Blog, The Brake Room, StopTech's Twitter and Facebook pages, plus the Centric Parts YouTube channel.

Facebook and Twitter in particular will play host to a special SEMA edition of Identify This Car. For those who have not been following along, players are tasked with being the first to name the make and model of a car based on an extreme close up picture of a single vehicle feature.

All week long the game will be played featuring cars from the trade show floor, and their will even be a special gift for the winner at the end. So hop on board now by "liking" or "following" StopTech.

For those who are feeling nostalgic for prior SEMA's, here are a StopTech's recap videos from the last two years. Last year featured StopTech's own Howard Hsia as a host, who has since moved his talents behind the camera as the producer of StopTech's popular Brake Decisions videos.

Video Recap of SEMA and AAPEX

With Christmas around the corner and parts of the country buried under snow, perhaps this video look back at the week in the hot Las Vegas desert that was SEMA and AAPEX 2009...

See ya Las Vegas

Another SEMA/AAPEX show is in the books for Centric Parts, but not before rolling out one more piece of news. This one from Power Slot.

You may recall that last year Power Slot introduced the Power Alloy Enhanced Brake Rotor in and picked up a Best New Product award for it at the AAPEX show.

This year Power Alloy is back but with a brand-new eye catching black finish. You can read the details here.

Dino Crescentini also had a chance to stop by the SEMA booth on Friday after wrapping up the AAPEX show a day earlier. While there, we shot an interview with him about his race season that we'll edit and post to the Centric Parts YouTube channel later in the month.

Thanks to all of you who stopped by. For those of you who missed it, we'll post a video recap to the Centric Parts YouTube channel later in the month.

Dino Enters AIA Hall of Fame - Alive!

Another big day for the Centric Parts family in Las Vegas for SEMA and AAPEX. Today Centric Parts CEO Dino Crescentini was inducted into the Aftermarket Industry Association Hall of Fame, which is the highest honor handed out by AIA. You can read the details in this press release.

The quote of the day has to be the one uttered by a visitor to the StopTech booth at SEMA when she heard that Dino was at AAPEX getting this honor.

"I thought he was dead."

Ouch!

The story behind this is that last year another race car driver named Dino Crescentini perished in a track accident during a race in a different series than the one the Centric Parts CEO races in. Obituaries showed up all over race media - with a picture of the wrong Dino - our Dino.

The journalists had used Google Images to find a photo of the deceased. They typed in "Dino Crescentini race car driver" and, not knowing there were two people with the same name in this community, ran the first photo they found.

The situation was compounded by the fact he was scuba diving in a remote part of the world when the news broke. Therefore he was uncharacteristically not returning phone calls.

Over a year later, it turns out there are still a few people out there who did not see the corrections and retractions that ran a days later.

Kudos for Centric Parts website at AAPEX

Calling it "truly a fine, fine work of art," the Auto International Association (AIA) today handed Centric Parts a Best Website 2009 award at AAPEX in Las Vegas. You can read the press release for the details.

Not bad for the first day of the show. The Centric Parts family has now earned each of the major awards given away over the years. Technically, Centric Parts had a perfect record this year, as Dan Lelchuk revealed to The Brake Room after the ceremony that this was the only award Centric Parts put an entry in for. With all the effort that went into making the site a reality this year, it was a safe bet the site would come out on top at AAPEX.

SEMA and AAPEX 2009 Begins

The biggest US event for the automotive aftermarket is under way. Stay tuned here for daily blog updates from the plus don't forget to drop in our sister blog, The StopTech Blog.

Centric Parts has a booth over at AAPEX in the Sands Convention Center (#9232) while StopTech and Power Slot are co-habitating at SEMA (#22387 - Center Hall) in the Las Vegas Convention Center.

The StopTech / Power Slot booth at SEMA looks fabulous this year with a new location and a new layout. Dino Crescentini's race winning Porsche is parked right up front.

Centric Parts is in the same location at AAPEX but with some great new news. After nearly 10 years of focusing on brakes, Centric Parts is also adding wheel bearings and seals to the lineup with two complete lines.

So if you are in Vegas stop on by, otherwise, keep checking back for more updates.