Three-time Super Bowl champion and serial record-breaker Emmitt Smith recently reentered the competitive world, albeit in a different category and capacity. He partnered with an old college friend who manages an up-and-coming driver in the NASCAR circuit. Jesse Iwuji Motorsports—the organization’s most recently formed team—runs the number 34 Chevrolet Camaro in the Xfinity series.

The 2023 SEMA Motorsports Parts Manufacturers Council (MPMC) wrapped up another successful Media Trade Conference (MTC) earlier this year at Anaheim’s Embassy Suites hotel in Southern California. Running January 23–26, the event marked the first in-person MTC gathering since the pandemic. And thanks to positive surveys showing the success of its revamped format, plans are already underway for an even more robust event in 2024.

Given that punking humans is still one of the easiest ways for a hacker to penetrate the most sophisticated of cyberdefense systems, many businesses are doubling down on training their employees to be on the lookout for the latest hacker scams.

Throughout much of the ’50s and into the early ’60s, Dean Jeffries earned a reputation as a premier pinstriper, painter and airbrush artist, applying his craft to media as varied as sweatshirts, Indianapolis race cars and James Dean’s infamous “Little Bastard” Porsche. His ambitions went beyond artwork, though. By 1963, he wanted to create an entire custom car, something that would push his career in a whole new direction. Inspiration came from watching sea life on a trip to Seattle, where a manta ray caught his eye.

It’s been decades since SEMA, the association, first recognized the need to have a voice at the table when it comes to legislative and regulatory affairs. The result was an office, staffed by legal and legislative professionals, in Washington, D.C., aimed at better informing lawmakers about the specialty products industry and the important role it plays in American culture and the overall American economy.

California Senator Anthony Portantino introduced SEMA-sponsored legislation to create a financial rebate program for converting gas- and diesel-powered motor vehicles into zero-emissions vehicles (ZEVs).

Starting at her father’s shop as a child, Taylor learned the craft of building race cars at a young age. While still in high school, she began building her first car, a ’68 Camaro that she raced the following year at Hot Rod Drag Week; at 16 years of age, she was the event’s youngest competitor. In the 10 years since then, she’s managed to earn a bachelor’s degree in marketing, run a 6-sec. quarter in her ’55 Chevy 210, won back-to-back Roadkill Nights Hellcat Grudge Matches, and launched another career as the co-host of “Hot Rod Garage.” Her business has recently expanded to an 8,000-sq.-ft. facility in Booneville, Arkansas.

The vehicular market segment that industry-watchers refer to as the “powersports” market is, in a way, easier to label than it is to define. What, after all, is the connective tissue that joins such disparate market segments as ATVs and side-by-sides, motorcycles and dirt bikes, snowmobiles and personal watercraft—especially considering that very few of these vehicles are ever used in a “sporting,” i.e., competitive venue?

Millions if not billions of dollars are spent each year on aftermarket automotive products like superchargers, intake systems, carburetors, fuel injectors and more. While the numbers aren’t as big, many of these accessories are purchased for marine use, too.

Shifts in the automotive industry and the overall U.S. economy greatly impact the specialty-equipment industry. To stay competitive, aftermarket businesses need to know what’s trending now and where markets are headed. The latest “SEMA Future Trends 2023” report provides industry planners a detailed analysis of key metrics for 2023 and beyond.