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.

Ultra Rare Porsche takes on the Historics with Centric's Help

A few months ago, we were approached by Jim Ansite, a well-known Porsche restorer in Southern California, to see if we could help with a little problem. It seems Jim was having trouble sourcing brake lines for a project he was working on. And no wonder, as the car in his care was a super rare 1959 Porsche 718/2 RSK Spyder (right), one of only four built with a central driving position.

It was an unusual request but not an uncommon one, as Centric constantly gets this type of call. After just three days, the 718 was wearing a custom set of braided stainless steel lines, researched and made by two of Centric's resident Porsche fanatics, Graem Elliott and Robbie Pyle.

The 1959 Porsche 718/2 RSK Spyder was an evolution of the 550 Spyder, but was considered Porsche's first purpose built race car. The central driving position allowed it to be campaigned as either a sports car or a single seater.

Flash forward to August and the Monterey peninsula was crawling with hundreds of collectible cars almost as rare as this special Porsche. It was Monterey Classic Car Week and the whole area was playing host to concours vehicles, newer exotics and vintage race cars. The Porsche showed up at the Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion held each year at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. We caught up with Ansite and the Porsche and discovered that Jim had another unique vehicle in his care that week as well.

The "Not Dead Yet Racing" team also had a special 550 (above left) in their stall. This special Porsche was a survivor, with a beat up body that told tales of its long racing history. After passing through a succession of owners ill-equipped to master this car's potential, the 550 was purchased by the current owner. It had battle scars and modifications earned over 50 plus years of track duty.

The car has an alloy body and dozens of "lightening holes" (below) where every extra ounce of weight was removed to improve performance. One of the areas that wasn't drilled, thankfully, was the brake lines. They did need to be replaced however. Knowing that Centric had helped out with the brake lines for the 718, Ansite once again called on the team to help with lines for this special 550 - and Centric once again met the challenge.

Classic cars aren't the usual application for StopTech high performance brake components, but it was nice to be represented at one of the most prestigious historic racing events in the world by a very special pair of Porsches.