We’ve been giving you the nuts and bolts from the show, but we know that what you really want is the inside line on what’s happening. There hasn’t been an incredible amount of juicy news, but we’ve heard some cool stuff while cruising around the show.
In no particular order, here are some rumors, opinions, and interesting news from the floor of the 2009 SEMA show.
No more National Guard for the ADRL? The rumor circulating around the show with respect to the American Drag Racing League is that the National Guard won’t be the title sponsor in 2010. The good news is that a new sponsor is already on board, so there won’t be any weirdness next year. This is great news for the wildest race series in the country.
Where’s the logo? While trolling around the Mopar display, we didn’t spot a single Mopar Performance logo. Weird and unnerving.
Drifters seeing the light? While we were chatting with GM Performance’s Mike Copeland on the floor yesterday, he was approached by a couple of guys who build drift cars. They asked him which cars they should look at for LS motors and manual transmissions. While we were discussing which transmissions would make for good drifting pieces, it struck us as funny that the two guys had never heard of a Muncie or Super T-10. We think those guys must have discovered a new word: “torque.”
Nostalgia monster trucks? Hell, the whole nostalgia Funny Car craze is sweeping the nation like a California wildfire. So the two Bigfoot trucks on display here at the show got us to thinking . . . Bigfoot #1 is here in all its leaf-sprung glory, and parked next to it is a modern truck with an early 1970s Ford body hung on it. It looks KILLER, and it took us right back to the old days of real steel-bodied monster trucks.
Ah, we found them! It has been a recurring story over the last few months: Camaros have been outselling Mustangs. Now we know why—they were all bought to be modified for the 2009 SEMA show. If there aren’t more than 100 new Camaros here (some posing as Firebirds), we’d be shocked. You can’t swing a dead cat inside this zillion-square-foot convention center without hitting one.
Shiny things! Chad is a grizzled SEMA veteran, but I’m a newbie. This is my first time here, and while Chad was giving me a pep talk about our coverage, he kept telling me that I’d really need to pay attention and stay on task because it’s super easy to get distracted and burn up hours wandering around like a lost child. Boy, was he right! There’s a lot of mud-flappy-type stuff here, but there are also hundreds of booths of stuff we could spend hours gawking at, touching, or dreaming about owning. (I think he slipped some ADHD meds into my drink.)
Know your business. The companies that have managed themselves well and were prepared for the economic slow down all seem to be operating in states of relative health. Most of the people we’ve spoken to have told us that they’ve done numerous things to modify the ways they do business to keep their people employed. We think that’s a great testament by the companies in this industry and their commitment to their customers and employees. Other major industries often cut people as a first resort instead of taking stock of their business and changing the way they operate. These companies didn’t, and that’s pretty cool in our book.
Spot that trend. We’re honestly trying to figure out what “the next big thing” is. After cruising the aisles of the show, we can’t think of one really big unifying thing that stood out (other than new Camaros). But LS engines seem to be dominating the new-parts market; everyone is building stuff for them. Check out the galleries on BangShift.com, and see if we’re missing something here. One thing we’re not seeing many of is rat rods. We’ve seen, maybe, one or two. Not sure if that’s a sign of anything, but they’re certainly not growing on trees out here.
