Summit Racing Equipment \u2013 The Performance Hub of Georgia

BUSINESS PROFILE

Location

20 King Mill Rd. McDonough, GA 30253

About Summit Racing Equipment

Steve Kester, Retail Store Manager, and Tony Longshore, Senior Manager, Order Fulfillment Center/Facilities, run the Summit Racing Equipment McDonough, GA operation.

Enter the Summit Racing Equipment store in McDonough and you’ve stepped into the world of motor sports, a multi-billion-dollar industry in the US that consists largely of owners and athletes whose athletic abilities are based singularly on how fast their car can go. Some professionals and many hobbyists and enthusiasts account for a large share of the traffic on any given day at Summit – folks who buy, trade, swap, repair, restore and race motor vehicles, to earn bragging rights as much or more than cash winnings. The sport in its many forms is the driving force behind the thriving market at Summit – a constant flow of people coming in to buy parts that will keep their engines humming and chassis’ looking like new.

This fully restored Rod is on loan to Summit and displays on a lift in the Summit showroom.

“We sell fun,” says Steve Kester, Retail Store Manager for Summit, referring to his customer’s passion for the bevy of priceless classics and supercar showcases, expo’s, cruise events, and spectator entertainment scheduled weekly at Summit throughout the year. The variety of amusement draws hundreds of owners, enthusiasts, and spectators alike. The Summit held its most popular event of the year in April featuring their ongoing partnership with the Atlanta Motor Speedway, the Annual Summit Racing Equipment Atlanta Motorama. They will be showcasing the AMS Pace Car at a one of their Friday night drag racing events, May – August, and their Monday night cruise events which run through October.

Steve is a collector of eight restored automobiles including a1968 green Lemans purchased new for his mom from Altanta’s old Boomershine Pontiac. “I love the sport too,” Steve understates.

Standing beneath the “Swamp Rat 15” display, built by the drag racing, legendary Don Garlits, which is suspended high above the expansive showroom floor, Tony Longshore, talks about the outbound and inbound call center that he manages as the Senior Manager of Order Fulfillment Center/Facilities. The operation houses over 75 employees in the same building as the retail showroom and represents the organization’s core business, a robust nationwide mail order parts delivery service. Tony is a native of Henry County and volunteers as a basketball coach at Creekside Christian Academy.

The “Swamp Rat 15,” the first dragster built to successfully drive with the engine in the back, is on display high above the Summit showroom floor.

Community Involvement

Tony and Steve are proud of their back pack program providing school supplies annually for elementary school children. The program is a joint effort carried out by Summit and their three sister stores in Sparks, NV; Arlington, TX; and Tallmadge, OH, their corporate headerquarters. They are responsible for many of the tools used in automotive training at the Southern Crescent Technical College and at the Henry County High School Academy for Advanced Studies. And they provide sponsorship support for Henry County Police and Fire Departments in active shooter training.

Chamber Involvement

Chamber members since 2006, Tony and Steve were recently spotted at a Chamber Business Booster Luncheon and proclaimed that they are looking to become more involved.