Sun, 02 Dec 2012, 17:32 PM PRI Trade Show Wraps Up Successful 25th Year

Courtesy of John Procida

ORLANDO, Fla. -- A successful week-long run of motorsports business activity concluded today as the 2012 PRI Trade Show at the Orange County Convention in Orlando, Florida, came to a close Saturday.

Approximately 38,000 racing business people from all 50 states and 72 countries attended this year's show to get current with the latest in racing technology courtesy of the 1,000 motorsports companies introducing new lines in racing products, machining equipment, motorsport engineering solutions and more.

"A lot of racing people throughout the world look at the PRI Trade Show as a place that they can take a measurement of the racing industry right now," said John Kilroy, PRI Trade Show producer. "Anyone that participated in this show, as an exhibitor or a buyer, has to be impressed with the amount of business that went on here. That says something very good about the state of the racing industry today."

An expanded Race Industry Week led into this year's PRI Trade Show. Several major events were among 35 conferences and seminars that ran in conjunction with the show beginning on Monday. The Advanced Engineering Technology Conference (AETC), Claude Rouelle's Optimum G Advanced Vehicle Dynamics Seminar, The Race Track Business Conference, the International Council of Motorsport Sciences (ICMS) annual Congress, the Winning The eRace Digital Marketing Conference, Winning Setup Strategies for Dirt Late Models, and the FAST EFI University training course on electronic fuel injection in racing applications all took place during this year's Race Industry Week.

Numerous attendees took advantage of both the conferences and the show under one roof during the week.

There's enough information to be gained at the AETC and then at the PRI Show in three or four days that would take you a year to get on your own," said Jud Masingill, of the School of Automotive Machinists. "All of the people that need to be here are here - all the suppliers, all the new parts are brought out. We build hardcore race engines and PRI's Machinery Row is our Disneyland, it's just incredible. The new guys come in here and see equipment they didn't know existed. All the newest stuff is here - it's just awesome."

Activity continued well into day three of the show on Saturday.

"It was a very busy three days, the show went very well," said Cliff Cohen of GM Performance. "We're happy with the turnout we had. We upped our floor space this year and we introduced a number of new products and it was very well received. We had a great mix of buyers all across the board."

Despite it being a transitional year for the show, it proved to be business as usual for 'the three busiest racing business days of the year.'

"I like the fact that even with SEMA buying PRI that it's still the same show that's been built up over the last 25 years," said SPEED TV personality Robin Miller. "I love all the innovation and the energy in this place is great. You can see that for a lot of these people racing is their life."

In the end, show exhibitor Phil Rasmussen, of Premier Performance, may have phrased it best, "We're all enthusiasts and we all want to go fast and PRI is where you find the products to go fast."

Preparation is already underway for the 2013 PRI Trade Show, which will see the show return to the Indianapolis Convention Center, Dec. 12-14.

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