Special Motorsports Event - Conferences Kick Off Busy Race Industry Week in Orlando

ORLANDO, November 30, 201: The halls of the Orange County Convention Center were filled early this year as three special events helped Race Industry Week draw large numbers of enthusiastic attendees on Tuesday in advance of the opening day of the PRI Trade Show on Thursday in Orlando, Florida.

The Advanced Engineering Technology Conference (AETC), Claude Roelle’s Optimum G Advanced Vehicle Dynamics Seminar and the Professional Motorsports Circuit Owners and Operators Convention all were hosting events Tuesday in conjunction with the PRI Trade Show that will run Dec. 1-3.

The AETC drew engine builders from a wide variety of motorsports disciplines including circle track, drag racing, road racing, short track, motorcycles and marine.

“The attendees and sponsors are very positive and the interaction between the two has been very strong,” said conference organizer Brian Reese, of the Comp Performance Group. “Our attendance is up from last year and every year continues to get stronger with the promotion of PRI. We have attendees from the professional engine builder to the grass-roots builders to racers, speed shops and manufacturer engineers.”

Reese wasn’t alone with his praise for this year’s AETC.

“The AETC conference allows us to try to stay on top of the trends and the best way to stay on top of the trends is to be down in the trenches with the engine builders,” said Mark Kostrzewa, of MotorState. “Our customers vary from drag racing to circle track, not just domestically but world-wide and that’s what we find here. The AETC is a very good marriage to be on the front end of the PRI show because it gives attendees the opportunity to gain information here and then use that information on the PRI Trade Show floor in their quest for products to build better engines.”

Similar observations came from the other two special events of the day.

“The convention is a pretty neat idea where we’ve tried to put together some expertise with all sorts of motorsports facilities,” said Sam Gee, of the Professional Motorsports Circuit Owners and Operators Convention. “Finding audiences, finding new revenue streams and owning and operating effectively is the common goal of every race track. We have attendees from all over the world - Singapore, Europe, Sweden, Norway, the U.K., Argentina, Chile, as well as the U.S. and Canada. It’s an international event.”

The event proved to be extremely popular among the promoters in attendance.

“I see this as a huge tool,” said Gill Campbell, of Mazda Raceway Laguna. “Getting together with your peers in the industry is invaluable, there’s no other training ground you have as a promoter. You only learn from what other people do, so this is a tremendous showcase for new ideas. The issues are very basic, how you manage your property, how you manage your community and your marketing efforts because no matter how big or small you still have to do those things.” In the end, Claude Roelle expressed the theme of the day – the desire to learn and go faster.

“Our seminar is going well. We have a terrific mix of people here. We have people from the automotive industry, from the tire industry, from race teams and all the way to Formula Student. It’s a nice combination of theory and practice, experience and wisdom and a hunger for knowledge. This is a great coupling with the PRI show. We discuss so many things in the seminar, that our attendees can then take it directly to the show floor and ask the product specialists and have a better idea of what questions to ask. There was a time in my life when I thought I knew everything, now I’m still learning things every day – whether you’re in NASCAR or Formula One, you’re still always learning.” Nearly 40,000 racing business people from all 50 states, and 65 countries, are expected to be in attendance this year’s PRI Show to get current with the latest in racing technology courtesy of the 1,000 motorsports companies introducing their new lines in racing products, machining equipment, motorsport engineering solutions and more. The event is widely viewed as the three biggest business days in auto racing.