Brent is a first generation American and his parents immigrated to the states after WW2. He spent a lot of his childhood playing with electronics. During high school, he practically took over the computer lab in the mid 80’s to code and tinker however he liked. He went to college to get a Computer Science degree and worked for Microsoft after graduating. He then moved over to GE Capital to do software support for them. At this point, he discovered Autocross and fell in love immediately!
He ended up buying an MR2 to race and wanted to turbo charge it. The MegaSquirt was available to control fuel but could not do ignition advance. So, he took it upon himself to build a controller himself and called it the Mega Jolt. He used the archaic Yahoo mailing list to post up about his idea and began selling them very quickly. To help ramp p production, he began purchasing electronic assembly equipment and installing them in the garage.
They eventually moved out of the garage to a real commercial space to house all of their equipment and parts. While working on their next project, the Race Capture Pro data acquisition system, they utilized a crowd-funding service called IndieGoGo to raise funds. After the success of this first campaign, they decided to do it again for their RaceCapture Track which was more affordable for the weekend enthusiast.
To continue to expand their offerings, they changed the product line name to Podium and began to offer live telemetry data that can be streamed over the cellular network. Their Podium Connect system allows you to transmit existing data acquisition system information back to the pits (and anywhere else) so that others can monitor your car.
Dave grew up in Melbourne, Australia and has always been a petrol head. He knew from an early age that he wanted to work with cars and left school at 15 to get an apprenticeship at a local dealership. During that time, he began racing go carts to satisfy his need to race. Once he finished his apprenticeship program, he became qualified to be hired as a mechanic. He then got a job at a shop that focused on motorsports and he began racing cars himself. After that, he took a job at MoTeC in Melbourne for 5 years before being transferred to MoTeC Europe for 8 years. He then transitioned out and started EPS (Electronic Performance Systems) to be his own boss.
He started the business in his garage and continue to operate that way! He uses a couple rooms as an office and for building looms and then uses the garage for injector testing and installs. He sells MoTeC hardware, builds custom looms and travels around the world to tune cars for various customers. Be sure to check out his immaculate Audi Quattro car that he has built and is racing up Pikes Peak again this year!
Lance is from South Africa and he grew up working with his dad at his dealership and salvage yard. When he grew up, he took over part of the business and spent years growing it. Eventually, he decided to make the move to America and attempted to continue with the auto salvage business. He came over on a holiday visa and quickly discovered how hard it is to become an American citizen. After 3 rejections, he was able to finally make it legal and he and his family got their citizenship. Along the way, he started in North Carolina, then Abilene (in Texas), then went to San Bernadino. After many failed attempts, a friend convinced him to become a dealer for the Superformance cars in southern California. Being that Superformance is located in South Africa and Lance having dealership experience, this was a logical fit so they went with it!
Superformance provides a “Turn Key Minus” vehicle which consists of a body with suspension and a rear diff. The EPA allows this because it only contains 1 of the 3 components required to be considered a car (the other two being the engine and transmission). This allows for customers to choose whatever engine and transmission they want to complete their car and make it their own. After a long legal battle, Superformance became the only manufacture that is licensed by Shelby to create the cars. They have also expanded to offer different models recently including a modern Ford GT40 and a special edition Bondurant car.
Lance purchased Superformance USA back in 2007 with the goal of creating more cars and expanding the business. While the Cobra is still the biggest seller, he is pushing development and production to continue to grow the business. They have leveraged the expertise of Kahn Media to take on the task of marketing their company. This has helped raise awareness of their brand and bring in new customers.
The Ring brothers grew up around their dad’s fueling station and spent their time tinkering with whatever they could get their hands on. Jim moved around a few times and eventually moved his family back home to Spring Green, WI (2 hours west of Milwaukee). He saw a 1969 Camaro Indy Pace car for sale in the paper and had to get a loan from a bank to purchase the car. He fixed it up and ended up selling it for a profit. This was the catalyst for starting his own shop. Jim found a vacant car dealership and bought the building with a friend to begin working on and restoring cars. Several years later, he sold that building and bought a piece of land with his brother to start Ring Brothers.
They were doing collision repair to pay the bills and bring in steady revenue. But their passion has always been for the customer and restoration side. On each one of the restorations, they would find more and more products that they didn’t particularly like. So, they would make these pieces in house! They built another building to house all of their CNC machines and now manufacture around 1000 SKU’s. In total, they have 3 buildings that take up about 15,000 sq ft to house all of their jobs and machines.