David Brabham among the motorsports pros on green racing panel at the MIA-SEMA "The Race Has Gone Green" Conference during the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach.

Exhibitor applications for the 2010 SEMA Show will be available in mid-March on www.SEMAShow.com. Forms must be returned by May 7 in order to participate in the priority space selection process.

Amid financial uncertainty, USF1 requests permission to miss first four races of 2010; spectator Susan Zimmer was killed during the NHRA Arizona Nationals when she was struck by a tire from Antron Brown's dragster; Atlantic Championship Series introduces a value program that guarantees any driver paying $495,000 a seat for the 2010 season; and more racing news.

SEMA again helped turn back legislation in the Washington Legislature that would have implemented a vehicle scrappage program for passenger vehicles more than 15-years old.

A substitute bill to ban the use of most aftermarket exhaust systems has been introduced in the Utah Legislature and passed by the Senate Transportation Committee.

Ford is accepting the final proposals for its annual project vehicle program, due March 1. Act now if you're planning a Ford, Lincoln or Mercury project for 2010.

Roger Penske gave up a successful racing career to open his first car dealership in 1965, but that didn’t keep him away from the track. He began Penske Racing that same year, and one of his earliest acquisitions was the 1966 Corvette coupe. The car had been used by Chevrolet to develop the L88 engine program, and Penske struck a deal with Zora Arkus-Dontov—who quietly worked around GM’s factory ban on race support—to buy the car for competition.

Penske sent a young West Coast racer named Dick Guldstrand to Detroit to drive the Corvette to Penske’s operation in Pennsylvania. [Read More]

As the automotive industry continues to adapt to changes in the economy and consumer spending habits, SEMA-member companies are faced with the decision to race ahead with a new course for the specialty-equipment market or fall behind with the old status quo. In a recent SEMA webinar, "The Major Determinants of U.S. Automotive Demand: Factors Driving the U.S. Automotive Market," moderator John Waraniak, SEMA vice president of vehicle technology, urges members to focus on the upside of the industry’s downturn.

The SEMA Person of the Year Award was established in 1969 to honor an individual for outstanding contributions to the industry reaching beyond the person’s normal job functions. In the case of this year’s honoree, those contributions were extraordinary and ongoing. SEMA was proud to name Doug Evans of Source Interlink Media its 2009 Person of the Year at the recent SEMA Show in Las Vegas.

News and information from SEMA's councils and committees.