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2011 SEMA Show Highlights What We Learned at the 2011 SEMA Show
As usual, this year's SEMA show exceeded our expectations and we came back with a ton of new contacts, a bunch of great information, and some exciting news about the future of our sport. We've posted a few of the highlights below, but if you want the full story or have a specific question about a particular company or product, please feel free to call us! Also, just like last year, we took a ton of pictures and posted them up on All Crawl where you can find them in the 2011 SEMA Show Gallery.
Banks Power - Gale Banks
The highlight of this year's SEMA show was spending about 20 minutes chatting with Gale Banks, the owner and founder of Banks Power, about the future of diesel performance. We've always been a big fan of his products and how he's always on the front lines working with the EPA and CARB to defend the diesel performance aftermarket, but the simple fact that he was at the show talking to guys like us showed how truly dedicated he was.
In talking with him about his current and soon-to-be-released products, we couldn't help but be impressed with how much research and development goes into each and every component of his kits, and while they aren't cheap, he made it very obvious that you really do get what you pay for.
Filthy Motorsports is an authorized Banks Power dealer so please contact us for a quote or for more information on what we learned talking to Gale Banks.
King Off Road Racing Shocks
Other than finding and learning about new products, like the cooling-finned shock reservoir in this picture (left), we use SEMA as a great excuse to talk to our vendors about their products and ways in which the both of us can improve to better serve our customers.
This year, one of the items on our list was to ask King about why our custom orders seem to be taking longer and longer - 3 to 4 weeks instead of the 1 to 2 that they used to take. Their reasoning was a bit disconcerting. Apparently, King has decided to shift their focus towards mass producing "standard", yet still high performance, shocks so that they can be sold through off-the-shelf and warehouse retailers like Summit and Jegs.
Luckily, they still have a small division dedicated to processing custom orders for shops like us (that believe if a customer spends the money for a set of King shocks that they deserve to have them custom tuned and valved for their exact application), however, the turn-around time is now closer to 3 or 4 weeks. It's also worth mentioning that customers in need of custom valved shocks can also order "standard" shocks with new shims for do-it-yourself adjustments and that will allow for faster shipping.
One of the fastest growing and fastest changing product categories in the off-road world is that of LED lighting, and as expected, there were dozens of vendors at the show pushing their LED products. In the end, however, we were glad to see that the two companies we currently work with (Vision X and Rigid Industries) are still the industry leaders.
While Vision X still has the broader selection of lights and more advanced features, we were surprised at the amazing improvements that Rigid Industries had made behind the scenes. In fact, they doubled the output of their LED light bars earlier this year without increasing their price or even making a big deal about it! Anyone that purchased a Rigid Industries light bar from us this year will be happy to know that they unknowingly received these improvements, and anyone currently looking into ordering a set of lights should definitely take a close look at them.
Filthy Motorsports is an authorized Rigid Industries and Vision X dealer so please contact us for more information or click here to shop on-line.
Maxxis
Big News From Maxxis! After over a year of not being able to get their Creepy Crawlers and Trepadores, we finally expect to have full access to their complete line of tires as soon as December, and as if the news can't get better than that, we'll even be able to offer cheaper and faster shipping than ever before!
With Pro Comp, Mickey Thompson, and Dick Cepek dropping their over 37" tires earlier this year (a result of Cooper tire deciding to only make 33" to 37" tires) and Interco slowly re-starting production on their tires impacted by the Denman tire plant closing, it was refreshing to hear that we'll soon have a couple more 37-inch-plus tires to offer our customers.
Filthy Motorsports is an authorized Maxxis dealer so please contact us for more information or check back in a few weeks to order them on-line here.
Eaton / Detroit Locker
We always like stopping by the Eaton booth because even though Eaton is an enormous company, their aftermarket differential division operates like a small R&D shop, albeit with an almost unlimited budget. While they didn't have anything new or exciting at this years show, we thought you might be interested to hear these interesting facts about them:
Believe it or not, Eaton's aftermarket differential division is not a major profit center for them, in fact, they only make about $20 to $30 on each unit! (Plus, our markup isn't much either so you really get a lot of bang for your buck with Eaton).
They have an amazing technical support department and a warranty / customer service division that would rival most mom-and-pop shops.
They take problems, issues, and failures very seriously and are constantly improving each and every one of their differentials. Over time, this is how they earned their reputation for making (almost) indestructible lockers.
Filthy Motorsports is an authorized Eaton dealer so please feel free to contact us for more information on Eaton products or to hear more about our trip to SEMA. You can also click here to shop on-line.
2011 SEMA Photo Gallery
Since the SEMA show is not open to the general public and our 2010 SEMA Gallery from last year was such a hit, we decided to take more pictures (over 500!) at this year's show and we posted them all up on All Crawl for your viewing pleasure. Check them out in the 2011 SEMA Show Gallery.
