Category: EPARTRADE Race Industry Week

Greg Biffle, NASCAR driver and owner of Pace Offroad; Beth Paretta, VP of Sporting, FIA Formula E World Championship; Chuck Aksland, COO of MotoAmerica; John Dodson, VP of Business Alliances & NASCAR at Universal Technical Institute; Josh Smith, Business Development Manager, Motorsports at Mazda NA; Cameron Gray, Director, American Flat Track; Chris Calkins, fout-time NADM Street Truck champion and Vince Neiderhauser, four-time NADM Race Points champion have joined the lineup of featured speakers for the 5th Annual Race Industry Week, taking place Monday through Thursday, December 2–5, 2024.

No charge to attend.  Click here to register. Race Industry Week is brought to you by EPARTRADE, RACER, and SPEED SPORT. For more information, please click here. 

Erica Enders, six-time NHRA Pro Stock World Champion; Mo Murray, CEO of Ligier Automotive North America; Michael Printup, President, Trans Am; Brett Root, President of IMCA Racing; David Vodden, Business Consultant to Motorsports, Thunderhill Raceway; Ron Knoch, President, NADM (National Association of Diesel Motorsport); Davey Hamilton, Jr., Producer, The Open Wheel Showdown; Marius Louvet, Director of Marketing and Communications, FIA WEC, have joined the lineup of featured speakers for the 5th Annual Race Industry Week, taking place Monday through Thursday, December 2–5, 2024.

No charge to attend.  Click here to register. Race Industry Week is brought to you by EPARTRADE, RACER, and SPEED SPORT. For more information, please click here. 

Kevin Miller, President & CEO of United States Auto Club (USAC); Brian Carter, CEO of the World of Outlaws; Chris ward, President of HSR, Historic Sportscar Racing; Barry Wanser, Senior Manager of IndyCar Operations of Chip Ganassi Racing; Tim Seebold, Managing Director of the F1 Powerboat Championship; Cindy Sisson, Executive Director of Women in Motorsports North America (WIMNA); Jonathan Applegate, Senior Manager for Mazda Motorsports; Pierre Lenfant, Sporting Coordinator A.S.O. Motorsport Events (Dakar), have joined the lineup of featured speakers for the 5th Annual Race Industry Week, taking place Monday through Thursday, December 2–5, 2024.

No charge to attend.  Click here to register. Race Industry Week is brought to you by EPARTRADE, RACER, and SPEED SPORT. For more information, please click here. 

Mike Hull, Chip Ganassi Racing’s managing director and chief strategist on the No. 9 PNC Bank Honda driven by six-time IndyCar champion Scott Dixon, has joined the line-up of featured speakers for the 5th annual Race Industry Week, taking place Monday through Thursday, Dec. 2–5, 2024.

No charge to attend.  CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

RACE INDUSTRY WEEK is brought to you by EPARTRADE, RACER, and SPEED SPORT. For more information, please CLICK HERE

About Mike Hull:

Mike Hull has contributed more than 200 race victories throughout his career, including wins at some of the most iconic races in the world such as the Indianapolis 500, the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the Rolex 24 At Daytona. Hull has played an integral part in Chip Ganassi Racing’s 16 IndyCar Series championships, working closely with some of the greatest drivers in the history of the sport

Kyle Larson, 2021 NASCAR Cup Series champion and one of the most respected drivers in NASCAR, Midget, Sprint Car, Late Model and IndyCar, has joined the lineup of featured speakers for the 5th Annual Race Industry Week, taking place Monday through Thursday, December 2–5, 2024.

No charge to attend.  Click here to register. Race Industry Week is brought to you by EPARTRADE, RACER, and SPEED SPORT. For more information, please click here. 

Known as a ‘wheelman’ for his innate ability to control a race car after rising up through the dirt track racing ranks to stardom in NASCAR, Kyle Larson has firmly established himself as one of motorsport’s most respected drivers on pavement and dirt.

After taking the dirt track racing world by storm, Larson blasted onto the NASCAR scene in 2012. The Northern Californian native quickly worked his way to a full-time ride in the NASCAR Cup Series, earning accolades for his racing ability and becoming a regular playoffs contender. Upon joining Hendrick Motorsports for the 2021 season in the No. 5 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet Camaro ZL1, Larson’s career trajectory rocketed. He won a series-high 10 NASCAR Cup Series races, plus the NASCAR All-Star Race, on his way to the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series championship. Perhaps more impressively, his 2,581 laps led in 2021 were the most by a driver since Jeff Gordon led 2,610 in 1995.

In addition to his stellar success in NASCAR, Larson won some of the most famous dirt track racing events in 2021, including the Chili Bowl, Kings Royal, Prairie Dirt Classic and the Knoxville Nationals. Considering the unique skill level it takes to race these different race cars, this feat will likely never be accomplished again and go down as one of the greatest seasons in American racing history.

In 2022, Larson returned the No. 5 car to victory lane three times in the NASCAR Cup Series and followed that up in 2023 with four more career wins to finish as driver championship runner-up. Off the track, he launched a new dirt track racing series called the High Limit Racing Sprint Car Series, which kicked off its first full 12-race season in 2023 before rolling out a 60-race nationwide schedule in 2024.

And If he wasn’t satisfied with all that, Larson took on another challenge in 2024, racing an IndyCar at the 2024 Indianapolis 500 in an attempt to become the fifth driver ever to attempt an 1,100 mile double on the same day, racing 500 miles at Indianapolis, before immediately flying to Charlotte to race another 600 miles in the NASCAR Cup Series race. However, weather hampered his effort as a rain-delayed start to the Indy 500, where he finished 18th in a McLaren Chevrolet after a costly pit road speeding penalty, meant he missed the first half of the Charlotte 600 race, which ultimately got called before Larson could turn a lap. The effort garnered a tremendous amount of media attention and fan interest in having Larson make the attempt again in 2025.

Alex Palou, three-time IndyCar Series champion, has joined the lineup of featured speakers for the 5th Annual Race Industry Week, taking place Monday through Thursday, December 2–5, 2024.

No charge to attend.  Click here to register. Race Industry Week is brought to you by EPARTRADE, RACER, and SPEED SPORT. For more information, please click here. 

Alex Palou enters the 2025 IndyCar season as the defending back-to-back champion. With 11 wins and 31 podiums in just five IndyCar seasons – four with Chip Ganassi Racing – he will try to build on an already legendary resume this season.

The 27-year-old from just outside Barcelona, Spain, is the second-youngest IndyCar driver to win three championships. His back-to-back titles in 2023 and 2024 are the first consecutive wins since Dario Franchitti’s 2009-11 championships, also driving the No. 10 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda. Palou is the fourth driver to win multiple IndyCar championships with Chip Ganassi Racing (Scott Dixon; Dario Franchitti; Alex Zanardi).

Former Haas F1 team principal Guenther Steiner has joined the lineup of featured speakers for the 5th Annual Race Industry Week, taking place Monday through Thursday, December 2–5, 2024.

No charge to attend.  Click here to register. Race Industry Week is brought to you by EPARTRADE, RACER, and SPEED SPORT. For more information, please click here. 

Guenther Steiner led the Haas F1 team from its inception in 2014 until the end of 2023, and came to public prominence as one of the stars of the award winning Netflix series Drive to Survive. He is now an expert analyst on Formula 1 for German broadcaster RTL, French channel Canal+ and Australia’s Network 10.

Born in Merano, Italy, Steiner began his professional motor sport career in rallying, initially achieving success with Mazda before joining the independent Top Run team and later the Jolly Club organization, fielding cars including the famous Lancia Delta Integrale and Ford Escort RS Cosworth. Between 1994 and 1996 the team won consecutive Italian Rally Championship titles with Steiner in the role of technical manager.

A move to the Prodrive organization in Banbury, UK, saw Steiner become team manager for its Allstar Rally Team, winning the European Championship in just its first season. This led to him being invited to join Ford’s rally team, M-Sport, where he became director of engineering, working with World Champions Colin McRae and Carlos Sainz.

In 2002, Ford asked Steiner to move across to its Formula 1 project, Jaguar Racing. As managing director, he took on the task of restructuring the team and in his single season with the team it scored a podium finish in Italy with driver Eddie Irvine. After a short period working with Opel, Steiner soon returned to Formula 1 with Red Bull Racing; the Austrian energy drinks company later asking him to establish its NASCAR racing program in the United States of America.

This led Steiner to North Carolina, the beginning of a new chapter in his career, during which he not only established Team Red Bull but also FibreWorks Composites, a high-tech carbon-composites design and manufacturing company that he continues to own.

When entrepreneur Gene Haas began exploring the logistics of creating a Formula 1 team, he approached Steiner to lead the effort. His past experience of building successful race and rally teams from scratch made him the ideal person for the task.

The Haas F1 Team made its debut in 2016, finishing its inaugural season eighth in the constructor standings with a total of 29 points, the most of any new team in this millennium. Since then Haas has become firmly established as one of F1’s leading independent teams.

In 2022 Steiner’s team scored its first ever Formula 1 pole position in the hands of Danish driver Kevin Magnussen. Meanwhile he has become both a media and fan favorite, thanks to his straight-talking style and the keen sense of humor. His 2023 book Survive to Drive became an instant hit and topped The Sunday Times bestseller list.

Ken Schrader, pro racer and owner of Schrader Racing; Ryan Sage, president and co-founder of Formula DRIFT; Enzo Bortoletto, president of Audace Tech / Stock Car Brazil; Linda Vaughn, “First Lady of Motorsports”; Adrien Le Pan de Ligny, development lead for A.S.O. Motorsports Events (Dakar); Levi Jones, general manager of Eldora Speedway; Marty Fiolka, promoter for Crandon International Raceway and RACER.com off-road writer; Preston Osborne, competition director of the America Rally Association (ARA), have joined the impressive lineup of featured speakers for the 5th Annual RACE INDUSTRY WEEK, taking place Monday through Thursday, Dec. 2-5, 2024.

No charge to attend.  CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

RACE INDUSTRY WEEK is brought to you by EPARTRADE, RACER, and SPEED SPORT. For more information, please CLICK HERE.

David Salters, president of Honda Racing Corporation USA, has joined the line-up of featured speakers for the 5th Annual Race Industry Week, taking place Monday through Thursday, Dec. 2-5, 2024.

No charge to attend.  CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

Race Industry Week is brought to you by EPARTRADE, RACER, and SPEED SPORT. For more information, please CLICK HERE.

About David Salters:

 David Salters is the president of Honda Racing Corporation USA (HRC US), formerly Honda Performance Development (HPD), where he oversees Honda’s U.S. racing and engineering activities, including the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship and the NTT IndyCar Series, working directly with the company’s racing teams and sponsors.

Salters joined Honda in 2015 as a chief engineer and engine technical leader at HPD. In 2019, he became technical director at HPD, responsible for Powertrain, Chassis, and Electrical engineering groups. In December 2020, Salters became president of HPD.

In January 2024, HPD became HRC US, combining with HRC Japan to strengthen Honda’s overall motorsports capabilities. HRC US will be involved in Formula One power unit development and race support starting in 2026.

Prior to joining Honda, Salters served in a number of roles within F1 and IndyCar racing.

From 1995-1999, Salters was a development/design engineer for the CART program at Cosworth Racing Ltd. Salters holds a Bachelor of Engineering with Honors in Mechanical Engineering from Cardiff University, a PhD from the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology, and was a research fellow at the University College London.

From 1999-2006, Salters was at Mercedes-Benz High Performance Engines (formerly Ilmor Engineering), serving in engine development roles for both F1 and Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART) racing programs.

From 2006-15, he served as the head of engine development for the Ferrari Formula 1 racing program.

Tony Stewart, three-time NASCAR Cup Series champion, former co-owner of the Stewart-Haas NASCAR team and owner of Tony Stewart Racing, has joined the line-up of featured speakers for the 5th Annual Race Industry Week, taking place Monday through Thursday, Dec. 2–5, 2024.

No charge to attend.  CLICK HERE TO REGISTER.

Race Industry Week is brought to you by EPARTRADE, RACER, and SPEED SPORT. For more information, please CLICK HERE.

About Tony Stewart:

After more than four decades of circuit racing as a racer and team co-owner, Tony Stewart embarked on a new journey going more than 300mph in drag racing. He became a team owner in 2022, with Matt Hagan giving Tony Stewart Racing its first NHRA title a year later in Funny Car. His wife, Leah Pruett, finished third in points in 2023 with a career-best season. Stewart made his NHRA drag racing debut at Las Vegas in 2022 in Top Alcohol, where he advanced to the finals and finished runner-up. He piloted the Top Alcohol Dragster for McPhillips Racing in 2023 and finished second in points. He earned 2023 NHRA National Dragster Top Alcohol Driver of the Year and NHRA National Dragster Person of the Year. 2024 marks his first season in NHRA Top Fuel.