Mackenzie Warehouse Honors Centric with Distinguished Service Award

Last week Mackenzie Warehouse held their 3rd annual MAC555 dinner and table-top show where Centric Parts was honored with the 2015 Distinguished Service Award for Exceptional Quality and Devoted Service. When the awards were presented, Centric received the loudest cheer.

“The participants in the Mackenzie MAC555 program were especially vocal in thanking Centric for providing quality products,” said VP of Sales Mike Musso.

Approximately 26 vendors were on hand showing and talking about their products, along with 37 of Mackenzie’s top customers and select MAC555 prospects. Centric Parts was well represented by Mike Musso and sales reps Ron Bessette and David Perry who were able to interact with the MAC5554 installers as well as selected MAC555 prospects. We received a lot of praise and positive feedback from the group.

Not only did the guys man the booth, but they also pitched in with kitchen duty for the night’s gala awards dinner, helping prepare tri-tip for the 200+ guests.  Leading the activities in the kitchen were Mackenzie’s Sales Manager, George Salfiti, who also happens to be a Certified Chef. 

AutoBild Magazine Picks StopTech as Best BBK in Comparison Test

In the December 2014 issue of AutoBild Magazine, the editors rounded up several big brake kits from some of the biggest names in aftermarket braking - Brembo, AP Racing, Performance Friction, K-Sport and StopTech - to compare head-to-head.

As a test subject, the magazine chose a modified BMW M3 that was put through a series of tests with each system to determine which brake system gave the best overall performance when judged on objective and subjective criteria. The judges looked at braking distances, fade and feel among other things.

As a benchmark, AutoBild used the stock BMW M brakes that come stock on the car. Not surprisingly, all of the aftermarket brakes scored much better than the BMW units, except one. The Brembo system finished just behind the BMW brakes, with a combination of poor performance and poor feel. At the other end of the finishing order, StopTech was named the overall winner, after scoring a perfect 5 out of 5 in every single category!

"No weaknesses came to light during the installation," according to the editors. "On the contrary - the caliper features a cover that can be opened for the easy removal of brake pads."

Other areas of praise were the system's lower weight, shorter stopping distances and fade-free performance - not to mention the lower price compared to the Brembo and PFC systems. You can read the whole English translation of the article here.

Click each page to enlarge.

Centric Honored for Third Consecutive Year as NPW Million Dollar Vendor

 Left to right – Chris Pacey, Dan Lelchuk, Larry Pacey, Mike Musso

Just like last year, National Performance Warehouse (NPW) once again started its 2015 FAST Expo weekend off with a black tie dinner gala, and once again Centric was honored as a Million Dollar Vendor. This marks the third consecutive time Centric has been honored this way, along with being named Vendor of the Year by NPW in 2013 and 2005. On hand to accept the award this year were President/CEO Dan Lelchuk and Mike Musso, VP of Sales.

The event was held at the historic Miami Beach Resort, in its famous Starlight Ballroom, which features panoramic views of the Miami skyline as well as the acclaimed infinity star effects out its windows. This is where stars such as Dean Martin, Jackie Gleason and Frank Sinatra once entertained. The dinner was held to recognize NPW vendors in the “million” dollar-plus purchase category for their efforts to grow with NPW.

Larry Pacey, CEO and president of the company, offered these remarks about the Club and Expo weekend: “Our FAST Expo is the kick off for our 2015 selling season and most of our suppliers are already in town. We appreciate what all our suppliers do for us and we wanted to do something special for them, so we created this club to commend those at the forefront and hope that we encourage others to make it to the club level as membership benefits our suppliers, our customers and of course, NPW.”

Centric Parts Employee Spotlight: Gregg Murphy

One person’s trash is another person’s treasure. We’ve all heard that expression before, but when it comes to discarded brake parts, who could possibly see them as treasure? Gregg Murphy can, that’s who. Gregg is one of our Centric employees who works at the Hebron, Kentucky Qualis Automotive facility in Quality Assurance. While most people would see these items as scrap metal, he sees the occasional rejected item and thinks, “That would make a terrific planter!” So rather than scrapping these rejected parts, Gregg started making treasures out of the trash soon after he joined the company in 2004.

As you can see in the photos, he’s been busy – making planters, bookends, clocks, and door stops out of brake drums and rotors among other things. His art has gained quite a following and has even attracted attention from a well-known car guy – Mr. Jay Leno. Gregg sent him a set of rotor bookends a while back and was repaid with an invitation to visit Jay’s garage.

For those who don’t know, Jay’s “garage” is a very well-known but very difficult to get into cluster of warehouses near the Burbank airport. In these massive anonymous buildings Jay keeps and maintains a fleet of over 200 vehicles. They are some of the rarest and most sought-after cars in the world and for any car-lover it is a truly special privilege to be able to see them in person. And now thanks to Gregg, future visitors to the garage will not only see a bunch of legendary automobiles, but they will also get to see the rare and beautiful Qualis bookends that Gregg made for Jay right there among the Porsches, Ferraris, Bugattis and McLarens. And we hear that those bookends will soon be joined by a set of Gregg’s planters too.

But Gregg’s artistic talents are not limited to just discarded brake parts. He also works in paper and plastic from time to time. In fact, Gregg’s latest creation is a set of semi-truck PEZ dispensers with our corporate logos on them. Because you can’t just go out and buy a set of trucks with our logos on them, Gregg purchased several with Ace Hardware logos on them and got to work. He was able to remove the old logos and replace them with our logos before carefully returning the trucks to their boxes and sealing them back up. The result is a set of Centric Parts and Qualis PEZ dispensers that look like they were purchased that way. They’re also a good match for Gregg’s previous truck project, a scale model tractor and triple trailer.

“I’m working on my next project for display here in the QA Lab,” added Gregg, “but it’s a couple months away from completion. When I complete it I’ll send you photos.”

Well done. Gregg! It’s always fun to shine a spotlight on hidden talents within our Centric Parts family. Keep up the great work and let us know when your next creation is ready. In the meantime, we’ll be looking at our trash a lot differently from now on.