Centric Named Vendor of the Year by NPW

Centric Parts sales rep, Joe Evora, and Centric VP of Sales Mike Musso (below right), were recently in Florida, where they attended the National Performance Warehouse (NPW) Million Dollar Dinner, the black tie awards banquet that coincided with the fourth annual FAST Expo.

All involved praised the event, held at the Tower Club on Friday evening.  John Washbish (President of The Alliance Buying Group) helped hand out the awards with Larry Pacey (President and CEO of NPW) and also spoke about Alliance and the great addition of NPW to the Alliance family.  Both John and Larry thanked all the recipients, which included Centric Parts for being a million dollar vendor.

As if that wasn’t enough, on Saturday evening, roughly 200 guests attended the "Vendor Appreciation Dinner" at the Broward County Convention Center, where Centric received the "VENDOR OF THE YEAR AWARD." It was an unexpected honor that Centric is truly grateful for.

In accepting the award, Musso said, "On behalf of Centric Parts, Dino Crescentini, Dan Lelchuk and myself I want to thank you for this award.  It is an honor to be recognized through this award.  If not for the efforts of NPW and their customers this would not be possible.  All I can say now is look out 2013.”

The Expo itself was well attended by both NPW Jobbers and installers (over 3,000 people), and we heard a lot of praise for Centric products.  Many installers told us that Centric is all they use. That’s always nice to hear and we are truly grateful for all of the kind words we heard regarding our products and our company, as well as the honor of being named Vendor of the Year.

The next CARS Expo will be held on April 14, in San Jose, Calif.

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.

Another Story of Centric Customer Enthusiasm

One of our outside salespeople just shared another story of Centric customer enthusiasm we wanted to share with all of you as well. Cost Less Auto Parts is a Centric customer with two stores in Vancouver, Washington. They are probably one of - if not the - busiest retail auto parts stores in the Northwest. Customers must take a number when they walk in if they want to be waited on by one of the 15 or so countermen.

The business was originally established about 30 years ago by Dave Alderson. Pat Hortsch has been at the helm for the past ten years, growing the business and adding a second location a few years later.

The cool part is that these guys love Centric Parts. When they made a sign for their front display (top), they prominently featured Centric's PosiQuiet pads. Even better, when they added new graphics to their van, they once again used a huge image of PosiQuiet pads on the sides. We love that kind of enthusiasm for Centric! Thanks for the support!

Centric Parts Securing the Safety of Those Who Keep Us Safe and Secure

Centric Parts reps recently attended the Rocky Mountain Fleet Management Association Conference in Arizona, where they met with Larry LaBarbera, Resource Management/Fire Maintenance Superintendent for the Mesa (AZ) Fire Department. Mr. LaBarbera oversees a fleet of 163 vehicles, that includes administrative use sedans as well as a wide variety of light and medium duty vehicles (1/2, 3/4, 1, 1-1/2 and 2 ton).

Up until 2005, Mr. LaBarbera had been using a combination of OEM and premium aftermarket brake pads for his fleet. In 2005, however, he switched the whole department over to Centric Parts brake friction...and he hasn't looked back.

Mr. LaBarbera reports that, "We’ve had great results with all of the Centric Premium and PosiQuiet products we’ve used over the past six years." In fact, Mr. LaBarbera says that he has been "extremely pleased with the results." He noted that, "Because of Centric's application coverage, noise and dust issues have been virtually eliminated," and that they've seen a dramatic increase in longevity over previous friction.


Mr. LaBarbera adds that he plans to continue using Centric Parts products on all of the light and medium duty code 3 vehicles in the fleet...as well as on his personal vehicles too!

Centric Premium and PosiQuiet friction is known for being some of the best friction on the market, but hearing such positive real world feedback - from someone who has so much riding on it - really proves that Centric is succeeding at its mission to be the best brake company in the world.

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.

Centric Parts Technical Support Director Helps Meals On Wheels Keep On Rolling

Reggie Bush with members of the Prestone and St. Vincent’s teams

Recently, football star Reggie Bush joined Centric Parts Technical Support Director, Pat McCleish, and dozens of other volunteers to help support a very worthy cause. The volunteers came together to lend their knowledge and skills to inspect vehicles used by the St. Vincent’s Meals on Wheels program. The organization provides meals to homebound elderly and otherwise less fortunate individuals around the Los Angeles area.

Sponsored by Prestone, the event focused on inspecting and servicing delivery vehicles used by the program as well as other vehicles belonging to the organization’s numerous volunteers. Experienced technicians like Pat spent the day performing basic vehicle inspections that included checking and topping off fluids, and checking belts and hoses, tire pressures, tread depth, lights and wipers, as well as giving the vehicles an otherwise quick glance over for other major concerns.

Fluid levels were adjusted and recommendations for further services were made where necessary. Over 50 cars and trucks were inspected and although several needed minor attention, it was discovered that a few actually had serious issues. In fact, they needed major repairs to make them safe enough to once again drive on public streets – some potentially serious accidents successfully averted!

“Vehicle maintenance is about more than making sure your vehicle will be reliable,” explained McCleish, “it’s about making sure your vehicle is not a hazard to those sharing the road with you.  I was happy for the opportunity to help assure that the staff and volunteers of the St. Vincent’s Meals on Wheels had safe vehicles in which to make their deliveries.”

Centric Parts is proud of Pat and all of our other employees who volunteer their time and resources to help such worthy causes. Way to go, Pat!