AAPEX 2025: The Aftermarket Trade Show Reimagined [RR 1059]
Remarkable Results Radio Podcast
Remarkable Results Radio PodcastSep 30, 2025
AAPEX 2025: The Aftermarket Trade Show Reimagined [RR 1059]
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30:28
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This is The Aftermarket, Radio Network. Hey, everybody, Carm, Capriotto, Remarkable Results Radio. Good to see you. Good to have you here. Ten years in. I think you all know that. Big announcement coming up really soon. And look, I believe this is going to release before October. And don't forget about Briggs for Breast, Briggs for Breast.com. The biggest initiative that we could ever think about for the automotive aftermarket.
To help raise funds, to find a vaccine for breast cancer. Get out of my website, type in Briggs for Breast. Listen to some of them. Actually, the most recent episode that we've done. And I'm telling you this and why it's important. Is there in clinical trials? I mean, this is a real thing that's going on out there. And this isn't a figment. It's been going off for 11 years of the research that's being done at the Cleveland Clinic. What happens? They've raised two million bucks so far. And everyone has a really cool program for their customers where they get free breaks.
During the month of October, where you could do it all day long. I got Mark Bogdanski, the Vice President of events at the Auto Care Association. We're going to talk about Apex. But first, thanks to our sponsors. Hey, you know, the Technician Shortage is real, but Napa Auto Care has a solution at no cost to members. The Napa Auto Care Apprentice Program builds tomorrow's Technicians through a two year nine stage curriculum. Learn more at member.nappaautocare.com or talk to your
Napa representative today. Hey, did you know that Napa Tracks has on-site training plus six days a week support? It all starts when a local representative meets with you to learn about your business and how you run it. After all, it's your shop. So it's your choice. Let us prove to you that Tracks is the single best shop management system in the business.
And I mean, that's a big title because you guys are always doing something for the industry. Yeah, it changes, you know, every day. We stay busy every time we can. Hey, Mark, what about this? We want to do this. I can't imagine that really cool thing about Mark and I, we go back a long time. We spent a lot of time together. And he's always looking how to make things better. And some of the things that I've heard about Apex of late sounds like it's going to be pretty cool.
But what I have to say to the industry right now. And I started to say this many years ago was if you earn your living in the automotive repair industry in the independent of repair industry, then Apex is for you. I know seem as there and seem as fun. And it's got a lot of cool bells and whistles, but the heavy duty training, the kind of intimacy that you can get with your suppliers with the manufacturers who make the products that you put on the vehicle.
The equipment that you use to diagnose the vehicle, their representative Apex. And that's what makes Apex so damn important and appealing.
Yeah. And you know, we've used that line that you gave us years ago. We've used that in a lot of our marketing. So it's a brilliant way of putting it. Why, how important it is, no matter where you are in the ecosystem and the supply chain for the independent aftermarket, if you're part of it, you got to come to Apex.
You say, I'm always going to make things better. I'm learning from you all these years. You know, every time I see you got new announcements. You got new things going on. It's been great to watch.
Thank you so much. And I really apologize for my opinionation on things.
You know, they tell me the same thing. Like, nobody has to worry about where they stand with me. Because I'm very honest and open about it. I feel the same way with you, Carm. I know if I'm going to ask you a question, I'm going to get the unfiltered truth. And that's what we need. So it's all good.
But what's really important when you offer an opinion to a friend or an industry leader is to look at their eyes and their face and their body language when you say these things and everyone's in a while. I'd say, I think I got through to him, but I'm not sure I never share there with anyone. It's always that internal feeling where you able to have make any impact.
Absolutely. I will tell you every time we have a conversation, whether it's at Apex or other events we've seen been to or together. If we run into each other, I always take something out of our conversations are always good.
So listen, instead of talking about it, and I would love to talk about the size of the industry. So people really understand what they're a part of. What's new at Apex this year? Let's talk about this thing you call networking and fun.
We've spent a lot of time over the last couple of years trying to figure out the way to make Apex great in five, 10, 15 years, not just this year next year, whatever.
And we spent a lot of time. You were actually part of that project, part of that interview process for us. We spent a lot of time going into that. And what we learned is that attendees, the buyers want to come back to Apex every year, but they want to come back feeling that something is different and that they're actually going to have fun while they're able to do business.
And so all of the changes that we're making now are focused around, how do we make that attendee experience better? How do we make it an easier way for them to walk the floor?
How do we make it so they have more fun? How do we make it so when they go back in their boss says to them, hey, what did you get out of it? They can easily say, I got all these things out of it. I got to go back next year.
And now I want to come back in two years or three years and four years. I got to make sure that I'm in Vegas every year that first week in November.
Like you said, go to Seema also if you're into that. If you like seeing all the glitz and the glamour in the cars, hey, go over to Seema on Friday. Have a good time.
But you got to make sure you come to Apex every single year. And so the changes that we've made have all been directed towards that.
One of the changes that I heard, Joe's garage is on the first level. And then if you go up where all the manufacturers and you name the kind of company that supports the industry, didn't you say you were going to segment them?
Yeah. So as I said, this is the biggest change that we've made to Apex since we moved the show from Chicago to Vegas about 40 years ago.
So what we're doing now is the entire floor, second floor, a Venetian, first floor, Venetian, and Caesar's form.
Every floor is completely segmented by these broad product categories, which means that companies, when they went to sign up for a booth this year, they had to select which section they wanted to be in.
We've got an accessories and lighting section. We've got under hood. We've got tool and equipment. We've got diagnostic. You name it.
It's about 15 categories, I'd say, they're 12 to 15 categories over the course of the three places. And what it does is it means that if I know that I want to go by break pads, I go to the section where they're going to have break pads and I don't have to walk the entire floor to figure out does this company have does that come in.
So as a buyer, it makes my experience and my time at Apex that much more efficient. Three days doesn't sounds like a lot of time when you start walking through a floor, but the floor is really big.
You know how big it is and people get tired. And so the more that I can do to make it efficient for people walking around, the better it is. And this is just one way of how people kind of find their way through the floor.
And the exhibits are excited about it also. You know, all the manufacturers are excited because now it means that they're going to be people coming to their section who want what they have to sell as opposed to just wandering around looking for something else.
Let me make a crazy assumption HVAC order conditioning specialist, or which I love to call today the thermal management specialist right because we're going to he pumps it with the V's and everything.
You got all the fancy titles all the time, Carm. Every time I turn around, you get another fancy title. Okay. So let me stop and give you a publication for the rise of the specialist, right? Okay.
Remarkable results up is forward slash rise, get it because all of those title changes are in that and I need you to then write to me and tell me that you've implemented them or that you love this and it's going to be a part of what you start calling your people and letting the consumers know, hey, we're more of a profession than anybody really knows.
And I think that's a big part of what apex teaches you not only from the networking side and all the education we want to talk about all the classes that you're having.
But I love the idea that if I can go to an HVAC section and I'm assuming there may be one there, then I can go in there and I can speak my language from booth to booth to booth.
And in my concentration level of learning, it's just both. I don't have to say, okay, I wanted to go see four seasons now. Where do I go? It's right there.
Exactly. And that's exactly why this is so important. It's a brilliant move.
You know, look, the buyers have been asking us to do it for a while. The exhibitors, the manufacturers, they were a little more apprehensive.
But once they saw how it laid out, they were excited about it. They understand a better buying experience makes it that people want to come back more and spend more money.
So everybody's very excited about it. Okay. A quote for you. I'm going to skate where the puck is going to be. Who said that? That it would be the great one.
Now we're opening keynote speaker on Tuesday morning. We are bringing in number 99 himself, Wayne Gretzky, the people doing a moderated conversation, a fireside chat, all about how to make your hall of fame.
So it's not just about, you know, the talent and everything else. He was obviously the greatest occupier, whoever lived had tons and tons of talent.
But it's also a matter of how do you see things? How much work are you putting into it? Are you working harder than everybody else? Are you doing the little things that other people aren't necessarily doing?
And so he's the end his success is not just on the ice. He's had success pretty much in everything he's touched since it's a lot like when we had magic a few years ago, we had magic Johnson.
And you know, people know him from being a basketball player, but he didn't start talking about all these other business ventures. He didn't even realize how associated he was with that was amazing to hear exactly. And so Wayne Gretzky's got a lot of the same kind of background.
A lot of the same story, not obviously the exact same makeup and everything as great as magic is. I don't think he's considered the best basketball player of all time by most people. There's no doubt that Gretzky is, but he's articulating. He's fun.
Correct. And so is Wayne. And we're really looking forward to having him at the show this year talking about it. All right. Behind the scenes, baby, take me there.
You're in this room somewhere a year ago, right after apex of last year. And you say, who are we going to have as a keynote this year?
How'd you come up with this? It's usually about 18 months before. So, you know, we've already we're down to our final. Let's say two or three people that we're looking at now for 26.
We have a group. You know, we meet both heavy, my CEO, Paul McCarthy, the CEO over at MEMA along with a few other folks. We sit down and we say, OK, you know, who do you think would be good? You know, we want to.
We had this kind of person. We have that kind of person. You know, we did magic is a business person, a sports celebrity that we had an industry panel last year.
We've had politics. We've had presidents. Who do we want to have next year? And we kick around ideas. And then I go talking to folks that I know in the speaker bureau circuit and figure out what's available and who's possible. And we go from there.
I love it. I mean, I think what you're telling me and I think you're telling our listeners is you've got to plan. You got to look forward.
We absolutely and I will also tell you honestly that a big part of it is we have an auto care. We have an events committee that I work with that help guide us on number of things and every single meeting that I have a diamond. I meet with them three, four times here.
I said, OK, guys, here's five minutes. Give me everybody. You could potentially want to see for a keynote just to hear ideas. Because you never know who somebody's going to throw out. That's actually how we got magic Johnson. Somebody said, Hey, I just heard magic Johnson. He was phenomenal. You should look into him. So we floated that internally. So that sounds like a great idea.
So we have, you know, a volunteer group also of industry folks who are throwing out names to us that we can get to and look somewhere possible, some are not. But that's how we do it.
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Let's talk about training 75 different classes that you've got online between technology and business management. I haven't seen the full list, but it looks pretty damn powerful.
Well, it's even more powerful because you're part of it. You know, we're very excited about that. You're doing your class. Oh my God. Oh nice. Wow. I'll send that 20 bucks to you.
We have a great line up this year. It's classes. Again, what we do is a little bit different than some other shows where we actually reach out and we say, okay, guys, we reach out to all the trainers coaches that we know we say, please submit what you think would be the best thing for you to teach this year.
They do a call. We do call for submission. It goes to everybody. We know it goes to people that they know we share to every network we can.
Once it all comes in, it all gets created and selected by a group of shop owners, technicians, and service providers.
So it is really crowdsourced. So this way the content that we're providing is content that our audience is telling us is applicable now and really important to have.
And when we get done having that conversation, we always say, okay, what are we missing?
Who else, you know, is there a speaker that we're missing? Is there a topic that we're missing? Are there topics that we would like to be able to address that nobody is addressed here. I'll give you an example.
We're bringing in new trainer this year. She is not taught at Apex. I don't believe she's taught anywhere in our industry yet.
He was Margaret Light and we found her because one of the people on our selection panel said, you know, I'm starting to see a real challenge I have with employees who suffer from addiction problems.
I want to make sure he's not that I, you know, I'm not going to sit them down and do, you know, the whole thing where you have to get clean or anything. But I want to know how to work with them.
I want to know how to do better with them. So that way, I'm just not kicking him to the curb. I'm not forcing them to do anything.
I want to make sure they're treating them correctly. How do I work with them? Well, we did a little bit of research came back and said, hey, there's this woman, Margaret Light, who's going to actually she has a class for automotive dealing with addicts who work for fantastic.
Talk to her. We're bringing her in. She's going to teach the class. Your buddy Rick White, great guy. Love Rick. He says to me, hey, I got to bring new class. I think would be good. I said, well, it isn't. He said how to work with your spouse.
Well, I got to tell you, Carl, we had this selection panel and the selection panels made up of people that work with their spouse, people that won't let their spouse come anywhere near the facility male or female. It doesn't matter which side they're on.
People that are divorced, but still work with their spouse in the shop. You know, it's, but it's everybody went, oh my God, that's a great class. It's a great class. So, you know, it's a matter of finding the class is that
that our panel and our folks really think are going to hit. And we're really excited about that and how we do it. And then on top of the ones that we pick, you know, Napa AutoCare knew this year is going to be coming into doing a whole lot of training, which we're really excited about. This is the first year they're going to be participating.
And we also have a world pack coming back this year to do a lot of their training, which we're also very excited about. So we have great training all over the place.
Sound super exciting. Two things, Margaret Light. We know Margaret Light here at the aftermarket radio network. She has come on to a lot of Matt Fonzlow's episodes together.
And yeah, I think when Matt came up with the idea to bring Margaret on and talk about addiction and the conflicts that happen.
He was so spot on why he lives in the Bay. He knows what the real world is like. And, you know, he's a family man. And he's well known in the industry. So he hears a lot of that stuff.
So brilliant move to bring in Margaret. And the wife stuff, the husband and wife, we've done episodes on it. And it is so interesting to observe the husbands and the wife that I actually do interview or that I meet in places.
They each bring something unique and different to their business. But they have to know their boundaries. And I think that's one of the keys.
I would imagine so. I'm not teaching the class. I'm going to leave that to Rick. But no, I think you're right.
And we're excited about all the different kinds of classes we have this year. I think we have a very good wider plus all the technical training and all of the great trainers that we normally get all the great coaches that we have. We're really excited.
The other thing I will mention is we're also this year we're launching a meet the trainer piece.
Which so everybody who's teaching a class at Apex. We are asking them to come in and spend a half an hour in an area. It's almost like when your professor in college had office hours where they'd say, Hey,
I'm going to be there from Monday from one to one 30 doors open. If you have any questions come on talk to we're doing that now with all of our trainers where they're all signing up. We're going to be able to promote that.
You don't have to make an appointment. You don't have to go to the class. You just have to show up. Hey, Carm. My name is Mark. I got a question for you about something I heard something in an idea. I had or can you have it with my shop or whatever it is.
It's a meet and greet. It's a meet and greet for all the different trainers, which are really excited about. It's a brilliant idea. I love it.
I'd be remiss if I didn't mention AAPX show.com. Thank you. Apex.com. Absolutely. Apex show.com. You're excited about all the things that Mark is talking about. So how do I get there. Exactly. Come on, register and come out to Vegas. Say hello to me. Say hello to Carm. But we have so many other new things going on this show every year. We're doing something new.
I've got probably a dozen new things. We don't even have time to go over all them. Give me a couple. Our Tuesday night reception that we've had last couple of years completely reimagined. It's now called beers and gears.
We're going to have a lot of fun giveaways there. There's going to be some fun things to do there as well. We're giving away our service awards there this year. We're really excited about that. We're bringing food trucks onto floor. That's interesting. Yeah. Yeah. We're bringing food trucks out right behind Joe's garage actually on level one.
Right behind Joe's garage. We're going to have, I don't know exactly the marketing folks from the process of naming it.
I think the last thing I heard was Apex drive through, but I think they're working on something else. But it's going to be food trucks right in the show floor. So this way, if you want to get a bite, you don't have to go.
And I want to have off the show floor by the time you walk somewhere, wait to get food, bring it back, whatever. But again, right there for you, you know, we have a student competition this year.
We're bringing in eight teams of Votech students where we're going to bring them in. We want them to disassemble and reassemble Chevy 350 engine, no power tools, all hand tools.
We've got a bunch of great celebrity judges. We're doing that Wednesday morning in Joe's garage. You'll be able to be right there. Carm, you'll see it here. It'll be great.
We just have, you know, we're bringing in a few hundred car county automotive students on Thursday. So they can learn more about the industry that they want to get into.
And we've done a lot of vetting. I know a couple of years ago, we brought some in and there was some questions about what they were going to do in the industry.
These are kids who are coming into the automotive industry after high school and after Votech school.
So we're going to be bringing in, you know, somewhere between two and 400 kids on Thursday to walk the floor and learn more about the industry.
We just have a lot constantly going on to keep it up today, try to make people excited about coming back, give them new things.
And we're really excited about it always something to do. Kudos to the whole education and the student thing.
I just want to share one thing with you, but my commitment to the young people and this entire technician shortage that call it a talent shortage. I think that's one of the things that you like to call the average age of the technician is 40 plus.
So if we're not involved in the young people and practicing high school college. And if we're not out there.
I got to tell you a quick one-minute story visiting these automotive schools where all the skilled trades are in New York state here. We have these centers that kids get if you will bust to.
I visited a lot last years. I spoke to the principal and I said, you know, we, this is a skilled trade center, but it's really an essential skilled trade.
I told them I said, you better start changing it to say the word essential because the parents need to hear this and need to know this. My son's going to automotive. Oh, that's nice. You know, no, come on.
And then just this past week, what hit me hard, Mark. And I'm going to share a new bit of language with you. We call as essential skilled trades. And I want to change the word from trade to occupation because if you think about a skilled occupation. I'm not in a skilled trade. I'm in a skilled occupation.
And I've gone to school for it. I've learned it and I've apprenticed for it. And the word occupation to me means I can maybe get married, find a spouse, have kids, have a home. An occupation means I earn a living at this as your career.
Yes. Anyway, toss that out. When I get an idea going in my brain, it just keeps cycling up until I at least repeated 20 times.
No, absolutely. One of the things that we have really committed apex to doing is working on that talent kept the shortage right there. And so
Oh, my God. So it's amazing. I want our people who listen to understand. There's 291 million vehicles out there that you have an opportunity or a luxury to work on. It's getting old.
Only getting older, right? It's up to I think 12.8 is the average age of the vehicle. They're only getting older. These days with everything going on, people are willing to keep their cars a little bit longer. Figure out how to, you know, pay to keep the car on the road, rather than getting a new one so quickly.
It's great for our industry. As long as we can make sure that we are filling the gaps necessary for the talent and making sure that we can do everything we need to do as far as getting the parts to where they need to be at the right time at the right place.
We are all living in the world of technology. And let's call it as technology shift mark. It looks to me like you're keeping a close eye on it with a lot of the training classes that you're offering. But with eight as EVs and all that we need to learn in the continuing education thing. You're now in it.
Well, thanks. I think you're right in technology and I think that goes hand in hand with some of the talent shortage and honestly part of what you were talking about before where parents may think on going and talking about it. They still have the same picture of, you know, the oil stain mechanic uniform and that whatever. And now you think about it and somebody working on the cars more likely to have a computer and a computer scan tool and a computer in their hand looking up stuff that they will have an, you know, a wrench or anything else.
And that's one of the things that we're trying to impress upon kids and parents like you said and everybody else is this is a career that is you can get be if you're into technology. This could be a really great career for you and things like that. Okay.
You have a thing called technology stages. Here's a stage. Here's the list and you can go there and take a quick EV innovations and eight as advancements and stuff like that. But what I want to do is I want to change people's minds as well.
I'm going to sit in the audience that I'm going to listen to pontificator up there, you know, the stage on the stage thing. But I want you to think of it like this, the lunch and learn how we in our world will say, Hey, who's going to go for lunch because we're all going to sit and watch on the screen in the lunch room, you know, this hour training session. That's kind of what your stages are they absolutely are. And in fact, it's funny. You say that because the other stage that were in the process of finalizing right now is going to be one panel a day specifically four shop owner.
About a specific issue, grab your lunch, come and listen and learn one of the topics is, you know, we again, talk to a whole panel of shop owners and they said, Okay, guys, what would you like to listen to other people talk about?
And someone said, you know, we're always talking about raising the car count. Well, forget raising the car count. Can we talk about maximizing the cars that are in our shops already.
How do we maximize, you know, the work that gets done and the money that gets made out of the cars that are coming in instead of always looking for that next car to come into our shop. Great.
Again, like you said, lunch and learn is going to be a 45 minute hour long panel conversation where you grab lunch, sit down, listen, ask questions, going to be interactive.
We want people to participate. Hey, do you do something that we're not talking about, you know, and something just like that.
And you're 100% right. The whole idea is you come, you listen, almost all of the sessions are semi interactive. You know, they might have a presentation, but they want questions, they want comments, they want feedback.
Whether you're on our EV stage, whether you're on the, whether you're at the Ados stage and we're turned and teach as much as we can about the latest in Ados, aside from the training classes.
And then we have some other, we have transmission classes this year, that'll be taking place on our stages.
All of them are going to be interactive and we're trying to make it so people want to come listen and hear what's going on.
How big your staff. We have a staff here of a couple of people at AutoCare. There's a couple of people over at MEMA and then we have a show management company that is very well staffed.
It does a lot of the stuff. We have marketing company and the whole deal.
Man, you're busy. I don't know how you pull all this thing together.
Let's go back to the shop owner panels. It's very much like my mastermind that I'm going to do where people sign up their owners. And then we find out what they want to talk about.
And then we spend a few hours hashing out each individual topic, maybe not like a panel would do in a limited time, but little longer.
So if you're going to go and you want to do an intimate, you know, 20, 25 shop owners in a room with the topics that you want to talk about, you pick to talk about.
Sign up for my mastermind, which I will tell you, by the way, we had several people say to us, you got to make sure you put calms, get calms, class on your schedule.
Thank you. I appreciate that. Look at one final thought out of me about apex is I am out trying to remove the word training from our language.
Even though I know that apex is a big training event, I think the word training needs to be changed to education.
And what apex is is a continuing educational thing or process that we all need to go through from every position in our industry from CEO right down to customer service rep.
We cannot stop wanting to constantly learn.
And when I speak to the words continuing education, it is the commitment that we need to make in our industry. It's not our grandpa's osmobile anymore, where there's a half a dozen things we need to know.
Now there's thousands of things we need to know and they're constantly changing. So what you're doing at apex this year with all the different training with all the different events that will make this continuing education at apex fun.
But also if you come back without a Swiss cheese brain, then it's your fault.
As I said, you know, people say to me, what's the one thing that I would say to people going in and how to prepare for apex because it is big and there's a lot going on.
I say prep as much as you can, but don't plan on every single minute of every single hour that you're there because they're going to be things there that you want to do that you don't get a chance to actually plan for.
And you've got to be able to happen upon whether it's a conversation, whether it's a product you want to see, whether it's a class you want to take whatever it is because you will come back in your head will feel like swish cheese because you just got pounded from all sides.
Prepare, get yourself ready, but then leave a little time to be able to explore things you didn't know we're going to be there already.
That's a final. It's a great wrap up right there. Aapxshow.com. I'm going to be there. Mark's going to be there. We'd love to see you there. Maybe this is the year you need to be there.
And if not, and yet been the apex in a couple of years, get your butt down there. You could watch the Wizard of Oz on the sphere.
I believe that is playing there. Yes. I think the Eagles are playing there again. Also, what were there? Oh, come on.
It's been like 10 years since I've seen the Eagles.
Oh, you got to go check them out. Come on. This is great.
Oh, I see. I just drew a blank. I have to play.
I got to get crazy to play in it. All right. Hey, Mark, Mark Bogdansky, the vice president of events at AutoCare,
which owns Apex jointly with Mima, the aftermarket suppliers. Thanks for all the work that you're doing to make this another great event coming up here.
November 4th, 5th and 6th, Las Vegas. Thank you, Carm.
Thanks for being on board to listen and learn from the premier automotive aftermarket podcast. Until next time.
About this episode
Excitement builds for AAPEX 2025 as Mark Bogdanski from the Auto Care Association shares transformative updates for the upcoming aftermarket trade show. Key changes include a segmented exhibit floor for easier navigation, a focus on enhancing attendee experiences, and a lineup of engaging training sessions. Notable features include a keynote from hockey legend Wayne Gretzky, interactive panels, and a new 'meet the trainer' initiative. The episode highlights the importance of education in the automotive industry and the ongoing efforts to address the technician shortage.
The Automotive Aftermarket Products Expo (AAPEX) returns to Las Vegas on November 4–6, bringing the industry’s biggest names, most advanced training, and a completely redesigned show floor.
Here’s what you can expect:
A major structural change to the show floor, segmenting exhibitors by product category for buyer efficiency.
Keynote speaker announcement: Wayne Gretzky, “The Great One.”
Expanded education with 75+ classes plus a new “Meet the Trainer” segment for direct access to instructors.
AAPEX 2025 is more than a trade show; it’s the industry’s hub for education, innovation, and connection. Come prepared, but leave room for unexpected conversations and discoveries that could transform your business.
Thanks to our Partners, NAPA Auto Care and NAPA TRACS
Learn more about NAPA Auto Care and the benefits of being part of the NAPA family by visiting https://www.napaonline.com/en/auto-care
NAPA TRACS will move your shop into the SMS fast lane with onsite training and six days a week of support and local representation. Find NAPA TRACS on the Web at http://napatracs.com/Connect with the Podcast: