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NICHE BUSINESS
FAST AND FURIOUS P.12. LET THERE BE LIGHT P.13. WHATEVER IT TAKES P.14.
BUSINESS FRONT
NICHE BUSINESS
Race, Break, and Fix
Lucas Oil Center changes more than just oil BY RILEY GUERZINI
Lucas Oil Center owner Bill Floyd and his daughter and human resources and operations manager April Maxey attribute their success to the quality of the product. “We’re proud that they’ve entrusted us to continue to share their product and wear their name on our jacket,” she says. It was 2007 and Bill
Floyd was in Indianapolis on a college visit for his daughter when he heard that Lucas Oil was going to be the name of the new football stadium downtown.
Knowing people at Lucas Oil from his days working in automotive manufacturing in Southern California, he and his wife Brenda had an idea that if the company was going to label their product Lucas Oil, they were going to need a place where people could go to put it in their car.
Within four hours and a few phone calls, Floyd sat down for a meeting with Lucas Oil founder Forrest Lucas at their manufacturing plant in Corydon, Indiana.
A few short years later in 2011, America’s first-ever Lucas Oil Center was open for business at 2650 N. Green River Road.
“This is a family developed and operated business, and we have a great brand partner in Lucas Oil,” says Floyd. “We have a fantastic relationship. They let us do our thing and as we grow, they just want to see more stores.”
Everything about the business was Floyd’s vision, from the name and logo to the services and products offered, and even the design and layout of the building — with a welcoming lobby with retail products, a coffee shop, and a massage chair. It was also designed to be a headquarters for the business going forward, which is why offices were built upstairs from the shop.
Business surged in the years after they opened on North Green River Road. A second store was opened in 2017 on the West Side and another store is set to open in Owensboro, Kentucky, in the near future. Floyd says they are hoping to establish more locations north toward Indianapolis.
Known in the industry as a full service quick lube, auto center, and car wash, Lucas Oil Center offers oil changes, tire changes, driveline and transmission fluid service, AC and cooling system service, batteries, and brakes.
“What’s really neat about what we offer that a car dealership or general auto repair facility can’t do is that we really require no appointment,” says Floyd. “Our stores are designed so that we have staging areas and we are processing cars as many as nine an hour.”
They added a full-service bay to their West Side location where they have a full-time master mechanic on staff to do more mechanical services like ball joints or AC repair.
Following Floyd’s passion, Lucas Oil Center formed a new USAC Silver Crown Racing Team in 2020. The team is called Pink 69 Racing — named after people who have called him Pink Floyd throughout the years and Interstate 69.
The car was built last year and in their first season, they had consecutive top 10 finishes driven by Princeton, Indiana standout Kyle Cummins. Their season opens with the 66th running of the Hoosier Hundred on May 27 at the Indiana State Fairgrounds dirt mile during the Indy 500 race week. z
