Team IMC Completes Tour d'AAPEX

Team IMC Completes Tour d’AAPEX

Braving bad roads, Santa Ana headwinds and smoke from the California fires, the Team IMC peloton arrived on Sunday at the front doors of the Sands Expo Center. “The ride was a pleasure to do,” said a tired IMC president and CEO, Thomas Beer. “But,” he added, “We had tremendous support from our support staff of IMC volunteers.” It took four days, covering nearly 350 miles, for Team IMC to reach its final destination. The team, comprised of a group of cyclists from Interamerican Motor Corporation (IMC) and other industry partners, rode to Las Vegas all the way from Los Angeles for a good industry cause: to raise funds and awareness for a pressing issue that impacts the entire automotive aftermarket industry. Specifically, the team chose to highlight the challenges and opportunities posed to the industry by telematics.

by Brian Cruickshank

LAS VEGAS — Braving bad roads, Santa Ana headwinds and smoke from the California fires, the Team IMC peloton arrived on Sunday at the front doors of the Sands Expo Center.

“The ride was a pleasure to do,” said a tired IMC president and CEO, Thomas Beer. “But,” he added, “We had tremendous support from our support staff of IMC volunteers.”

It took four days, covering nearly 350 miles, for Team IMC to reach its final destination. The team, comprised of a group of cyclists from Interamerican Motor Corporation (IMC) and other industry partners, rode to Las Vegas all the way from Los Angeles for a good industry cause: to raise funds and awareness for a pressing issue that impacts the entire automotive aftermarket industry. Specifically, the team chose to highlight the challenges and opportunities posed to the industry by telematics.

Above: Team IMC reached its final destination on Sunday at the Sands Expo Center. The team rode to Las Vegas from Los Angeles to raise funds and awareness of several aftermarket issues.

“The original goal was to ride from Los Angeles to Las Vegas to attend the AAPEX show. But after some thinking we thought that our ride could have a positive impact on our industry,” said Beer. “The enhanced goal, other than surviving the ride, was to raise funds to study and then develop strategies on how we as an industry will turn telematics from a threat into an opportunity.

“Technology is such that it can lock out the aftermarket,” said David Pollack, IMC’s director of marketing. “It potentially can take the installer and jobber out of the service and repair equation, and that directly affects the motoring public.”

Monies raised from this event will be used to fund a study and subsequent white paper on the challenges and opportunities presented by telematics. A check will be presented at IMC’s reception on Wednesday evening.