Sube Sports retailer spotlight

Subè Sports: PRI Retailer Profile     

Nearing the end of a championship career as a rally driver, Chad DiMarco took a risk every bit as big as cresting a blind hill at 100 miles an hour. He used a year’s worth of sponsorship support from Subaru to build a bridge from racer to retailer, buying the Huntington Beach, California, building that now houses his performance business, Subè Sports. 

“I’m going to be in the business of selling race parts a lot longer than using them to race,” DiMarco reasoned. But he had already given Subaru a guarantee that he would race well enough to give the carmaker a certain amount of exposure as payback for the money. “I used a big chunk of the sponsorship money to buy the building,” said DiMarco. “I sweated bullets that whole season, but we went on to win the championship.” 

It was one of five championships that DiMarco earned for Subaru while racing on American backroads, in a Group A car that had half as much horsepower as some of the faster Group B machines, often referred to as “Killer Bs,” notorious for outrageous, unlimited horsepower and the twitchy handling that goes with a short wheelbase. “I felt very accomplished in ’91 when I beat a Group B car to win a national championship,” DiMarco recalled. 

Rally racing in America, much of it sanctioned by the SCCA, is more open to chance than the international events that national television audiences are accustomed to seeing. European rallyists have the luxury of practicing every stage of the race several times, until the navigator knows every subtle quirk and pebble on the course.  

By contrast, many American rallies are run on public roads or in areas with environmental restrictions, such as real estate managed by the Federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which limits practice and sometimes eliminates it completely. As a result, DiMarco explained, “We raced what we saw. When we went flying over the crest of a hill, we did it blind and had no idea what was on the other side.” 

Buying the building that houses Subè Sports was almost as great a leap of faith for DiMarco. Subaru was not widely associated with performance outside the world of road rally. “I was an anomaly,” DiMarco recalled from those days in the mid-1980s when Audi and Lancia ruled that form of motorsports.  

Nonetheless, DiMarco approached Subaru, looking for a competitive advantage. “I was looking for something with four wheel drive, but that was more suitable to the American public,” he said. “I was a pioneer. I pride myself on being ahead of the curve. But I missed it by about 10 years,” referring to the dominance that Subaru enjoys now in off-road rally racing. 

DiMarco also was trying to stay ahead of the curve when it came to American customers accepting products manufactured by his sponsors. They were popular with rallyists, but were relatively unknown in the United States. “We were already doing the marketing for them,” DiMarco explained, by exposing them to potential customers through the race cars. “So we thought ‘why not sell them, too?’ since we needed to generate more money to support the race team.”  

The test of that faith came in 1994, the year DiMarco retired after winning his fifth championship. Subaru had lost ground in its effort to gain traction in the American market. “They almost went bankrupt,” DiMarco recalled. “They had a six-story headquarters building and two floors worth of executives were laid off.” 

To survive, Subaru cancelled all of its promotional programs, including sponsorship of DiMarco’s race team, even though research showed that the benefits of the sponsorship far outweighed the costs. The transformation at Subaru put DiMarco through a survival test of his own as he shifted gears from racing to retailing and his gamble to buy the building began to pay dividends. 

Up to that point, only a quarter of the 6000-square-foot building was devoted to racing supplies and a small showroom. Three quarters of the building had been taken up with several cars and engines, essentially the team’s shop. Gradually, racing merchandise took over the space as the team was liquidated. 

Initially, the foundation of DiMarco’s business plan was based on his loyalty to Subaru and his background in rally racing. Market research soon showed him that the plan would quickly run out of speed like an engine on a short rev limiter. It forced changes in his business approach that were dictated more by his head than his heart. 

“Because of our past experience with Subaru, we were going to specialize in parts for them,” DiMarco explained. “But when we looked real hard at the numbers, it showed that Subaru represented only one-half of one percent of all the new car sales in the US and only two percent of those buyers were interested in high performance.” 

DiMarco also looked around the industry and saw what had happened to other businesses that tried to squeeze into too narrow a market segment. “A lot of them built inventory that was antiquated in three months,” he noted, as one business competitor after another tried to trump the people who preceded them.  

That led DiMarco to an obvious conclusion, that appealing to a broader market was his key to the survival of Subè Sports. But there is a fine balance between broad appeal and an approach so wide that it lacks the focus that makes a company stand out from the competition, he believes. As a result, the inventory at Subè Sports reflects DiMarco’s background in rally racing and its core customers are a base from which he reaches out to other segments of the racing industry. 

Brand names in safety gear at Subè Sports include Puma, Sparco, OMP, Stand 21, Bell, Schroth, Crow, Sabelt and more. 

At Subè Sports, (the name is a truncated version of Subaru that reflects DiMarco’s loyalty to the car maker), the shelves are lined with safety items from seats, suits and shoes to helmets and harnesses and most everything in between. “This takes us outside the world of rallying off-road and takes us into the midgets and other open wheel cars, ASA and other kinds of stock cars,” said DiMarco, “so that we get as many potential customers as possible.” 

That does not mean, he cautions, that racers from all forms of motorsports will automatically flock to your door. “Every success in the racing business has a niche where nobody can compete with,” said DiMarco. “That base creates momentum for the other market segments.” 

At Subè Sports, that base continues to be off-road and rally racers, reflecting DiMarco’s long-time background as well as his professional accomplishments. “I grew up in Riverside,” he explained, referring to the desert-like area about 60 miles east of his coastal, Los Angeles area location. “I grew up with Walker Evans (many-time Baja 1000 champion) and have been around off-road racing all of my life.”  

Many of Subè Sports’ customers are from the upper echelon of rally and off-road racing, from the Baja California peninsula of Mexico to the Paris-Dakar event. And because some of them also either participate in other forms of racing or hang out with people who do, they form a network of customers that reach as far as NASCAR and karting.  

Because of the abuse that rally racing heaps on both equipment and drivers, all of the top teams use equipment that is technologically advanced, said DiMarco, from space-age materials to orthopedic-friendly designs, which ultimately makes them desirable to other types of racers as well. That includes seats with their own absorption systems to dilute the pounding of flying through the air at 100 miles an hour, driving suits that are designed as much for comfort as they are for safety and shoes that combat heat and leg cramps in addition to being fireproof.  

Introducing a new, advanced product to even one team can spread sales like wildfire throughout an entire series, DiMarco noted. When he introduced a new line of seats designed to prevent injuries in hard crashes, for example, he started with one top team in the SCORE series. Covered in NASA-style Aerofoam, the seat absorbs 85 percent of the energy that it gets hit with while protecting the driver’s back from serious injury. “This seat has survived 63 Gs on rear impact, which is the maximum on the test sled,” DiMarco explained, compared to an industry safety benchmark of 24. 

“I introduced it to one team,” DiMarco recalled. “But racers are funny guys.” Many of them copy each other, he noted. From that one sale, “the seat kept trickling and trickling down onto other teams.” 

Offering racers the opportunity to buy top-of-the-line, advanced technology is a hallmark of Subè Sports, a marketing advantage borne out of DiMarco’s own experiences as a racer. “I have gone over a 50-foot cliff and I’ve barrel-rolled 15 times,” he recalled. “Because we chose the best equipment, I never broke a bone while I was racing,” DiMarco offers as a testimonial to the quality of what he sells.  

“You won’t find anything in our store that we wouldn’t use in our own cars,” DiMarco said. “Saving lives is more important than saving money.”  

That does not mean, he added quickly, that every customer should be sold the most advanced or highest priced item on the shelf. “We try to not oversell the customer.” Instead, DiMarco’s approach is to create a relationship with the customer, so that he understands their racing needs and they trust him with recommendations. “You have a responsibility to your customer to know your product and when to move somebody up or down the line.”  

The key to that balance, DiMarco added, is knowing your customers as well as knowing your products. Customers who are on a budget have different perspectives than those with unlimited funds. A professional racing for a championship has different needs than a weekend warrior. Even racers in the same series may have different goals or needs, which dictate what kind of products they buy. “You have to ask personal questions,” DiMarco said. “You have to make them comfortable with you first. Remember, it’s not about you, it’s about them. If you get a customer comfortable with where they shop, then you can help them know what they need.”  

He acknowledged that there are customers who are most concerned about price. But DiMarco believes that ultimately more customers are concerned about performance. There are two approaches to retailing, said DiMarco. “There is the Wal-Mart approach with piles of merchandise on the floor, assuming that the customer just wants to get in and get out,” he said. “But most racers don’t know enough about technology and that gives us a chance to have a discussion with them. And a repeat customer is one you give knowledge.” 

When DiMarco explains the benefits of his products, he sounds part salesman and part medical doctor. As a pre-med student in college, he learned a lot about physiology and how the body moves. It helps DiMarco explain to his customers how his products benefit them. His seats, for instance, prevent injury by “keeping the vertebrae perfectly stacked and as rigid as possible.” He knows the vein pattern across the top of the foot well enough to sell shoes with laces up the side to long distance racers so they don’t constrict blood flow, which causes leg cramps. The space age material in some driving suits are better designed to wick off heat, which may dictate what he offers to a closed cockpit driver over one who drives open cars.  

Knowing both his customers and his products helps DiMarco find combinations that work. Some customers, for example, may walk in asking for the most expensive helmet in the store, even though they don’t need quite that level of protection. “The safety is not in the shell, but from what’s packed inside of it,” DiMarco explained. “I have closed cockpit racers who want to spend extra money on a Kevlar helmet, but they don’t need that level of puncture protection. I try to get them to stay in a helmet with a fiberglass shell and put the extra money toward a driving suit that’s better for them. At the end of the day, the customer who is comfortable with their equipment will go fast.” 

DiMarco also believes that it is just as important to convince a driver not to buy the cheapest, entry-level product in a line as it is not to go top shelf. “We have a lot of racers who come in on a budget and I understand that because I had to do it, too,” DiMarco stated. But after years of retailing experience, DiMarco firmly believes that, in most cases, buying the least expensive items waste money. “It’s a redundant purchase,” he said, emphasizing to customers that they will be spending that same money plus more to upgrade sooner than they expect. “I tell them to trust me; almost everyone who buys entry-level stuff will come back to buy something better, so why not save money by buying something a little better to start with.” 

DiMarco also cautions that it is important to evaluate just how much advice a customer is willing to accept before you begin to offer it. “You have to categorize your buyers and gain information about what they like before you can approach them about a new product,” he said. 

Professional drivers, with a lot of laps of experience behind them, tend to know what they want and may accept advice slowly over time. “As your relationship with them evolves, you may get to inject your opinion gradually,” DiMarco advised. 

With customers who are amateur racers with little experience, DiMarco said, “you have to give them the full schooling because you have the knowledge.” Many customers, he adds, are somewhere in between. 

And regardless of how much experience a customer may have or not, it is critical, DiMarco emphasized, to know everything there is to learn about product. That is especially true since the advent of sophisticated design and advanced materials that offer superior benefits over more traditional lines. “When I first started, I could sell the same gloves and shoes for 10 years,” said DiMarco. “Now, you have to stay on top of the technology.”  

In a fast-paced world, his method for doing that is “very simple,” he said. “You just have to read. I haven’t read a novel in 10 years, but I have read every catalog in our business. Today, with search engines on the Internet, you can educate yourself very quickly.” 

DiMarco estimates that, because of technology and design changes, “the lifespan of a product is about 36 months.” But even if a product has the lifespan of a fruit fly, DiMarco believes a deep inventory is critical to sales. “For the most part, racers wait to the last minute and buy what’s available,” he said. “I keep at least three months of inventory of any product because you never know when things are going to pick up,” or if a backlog from a manufacturer will leave you in a lurch. “What hurts is when a customer needs something you don’t have.” 

With one recent sale, for example, a customer who had been shopping for a driving suit ended up buying it at Subè Sports for one simple reason. “We had six different types of driving suits in stock and he could try all of them on in one place,” DiMarco recalled.  

It’s important to keep products on the shelf, even if they are coming to the end of their life cycle. “You have to keep it on the shelf and cover at least a month’s worth of sales,” he said. And he doesn’t slash prices and throw away profit margin if a manufacturer offers close-out discounts. At Subè Sports, it stays on the shelf for sale at regular price. “If it’s still good for years to come, over time, enough people will feel the need for the old reliable.”  

DiMarco invests a lot of energy in drawing attention to Subè Sports. “I’m a big advocate of advertising, especially in print media,” he said. Many of his ads, whether they are in magazines or on posters, are cooperative projects with manufacturers of the parts he sells. Many are developed by a contract ad agency “because they are creative and they give me things that are different.”  

One of his most elaborate and eye-grabbing ad projects combines a creative approach with an old standby. “It’s a tasteful elaboration on beauty without becoming a ‘girlie thing,’” DiMarco said about his annual beauty contest to name a “Miss Cobra Seats,” a promotion that goes on for a year until a new contest winner is named. 

With the help of his ad agency, applicants are evaluated over four months, with the winner representing Subè Sports in ads and at events, while photos of the runners-up are posted on the company’s web site as well. “Monet and Picasso are just two artists who celebrated the human form,” said DiMarco. “Our campaign is a piece of art, but it also has a message that our seats fit the human body.” 

Beyond the subtle message, it’s a time-worn, traditional approach to marketing racing products that goes back to the days of pin-up calendars for tools at Sears. “I’m an advocate of women in racing, “ said DiMarco, who sponsors Erin Crocker in NASCAR and Katherine Legge in Champ Car. But we are in a male-dominated industry and good-looking women grab the eye. If I can get someone to glimpse an ad, it’s a branding exercise.”  

And the benefits go beyond any investment cost, providing exposure in markets that DiMarco said he otherwise couldn’t afford. “All of these women have fans and it brings people to our web site and into our store,” he said. When last year’s contest winner did a promotion for the Super Bowl, DiMarco said it indirectly benefited his store to the extent that fans recognized her as a representative of Subè Sports. “No way could I afford an ad in the Super Bowl, but this gave us exposure all over a national network.” 

Initially reluctant to do the campaign, DiMarco firmly supports the effort as a way to boost sales. “My ad agency beat on me for five years to do this,” he said. “Now I believe we will do this campaign until I’m no longer president of this company.”  

Source: Bill Sessa

Performance Racing Industry Magazine

January2007

www.performanceracingindustry.com 

www.subesports.com 

Sube Sports, Playing It Safe.

Playing IT Safe…

 IN THIS DISCUSSION, CHAD TALKS ABOUT THE MOST SUCCESSFUL—AND SOMETIMES CONTROVERSIAL—SAFETY DEVICE IN TODAY’S DRIVING ARENAS. 

Chad DiMarco—Contracted factory Rally driver for ten years with Subaru, developed and produced World Rally cars for fifteen years, five time consecutive US National Rally Champion, world ranked Seed B driver in WRC, owner of Subé’ Sports established in 1987,to bring the most technically advanced safety equipment available in worldwide competition to theUS competitor. 

VM: Chad, the POC has always placed great importance on staying safe while driving, and has made that a key element in it’s training and driving events. Have you seen any significant increase in attention to safety concerns over the past several years, and what do you think has motivated this?

CDM: Certainly, the fatalities of racing greats in the various sporting venues around the world have traditionally made us reflect on safety and the development of safety devices for both the professional and the amateur driver. But, I think since the loss of Dale Earnhardt (although far from the Sports Car racing venue) has probably spurred the greatest attention to driver safety than ever before here in the United States. It’s unfortunate that such a tragedy is the spawning ground that revolutionary ideas come from in safety. But, certainly the death of a competitor is the direct result of a catastrophic failure of safety items and thus it probes us to investigate, respond and develop.  Personally, I like to think these new safety developments are the greatest legacy that the great drivers (the Mark Donahue’s, Ayrton Senna’s, and Dale Earnhardt’s) have left behind well beyond the remembrances of their great performances. I think that the recognition of a fatality by the general competitor has a real grounding effect of mortality and the consciousness of the relative danger inherent to our sport. Lets face it there are many different hobbies out there for us to participate in that doesn’t involve this level of risk. Conversely, I think both manufacturers and distributors of racing safety equipment have taken a higher level of responsibility to the safety of the general competitor than ever before. I have a very simple saying for our distributors of our equipment, if you’re selling something you wouldn’t use yourself—shame on you! And this is also my guarantee to our customer base that there is not a single product we represent that I wouldn’t use myself at any given racing venue.

VM: The HANS device is obviously the big news of late. Do you feel it is the most effective device on the market for protecting drivers in high impact or contact situations? The HANS has definitely gotten the most press, but are there others products that you feel are effective that haven’t achieved the same level of recognition or acceptance?

CDM: Ah, the band-aid to fix the mortality of our sport. I don’t mean to be facetious about such a revolutionary device or the seriousness of the subject at hand, but I personally feel that both the competitors and sanctioning bodies have gravitated to this device any head restraint system) as the easy solution to preventing brain or spinal column injury in our sport. Certainly, the data is impressive in regard to reduction of over-articulation of the upper vertebrate in frontal only collisions. But many individuals overlook the basics that are the primary supports and reduction elements to spinal cord and basilar brain stem injuries, and look to this device as a safety blanket that they feel comfortable with. Thus, the term ‘band-aid ‘ ultimately comes from the utilization of this device while used in conjunction with poorly chosen substrates in driver support during extreme energy loads in racing accidents. 

The primary restraint to the driver’s body and first defense against broken bones, internal organ injury, and brain /spinal cord injury is driver’s harness system in conjunction with the driver’s seat—the total restraint system.’ This system provides frontal driver restraint while the seat provides the rear facing and lateral restraint the driver—together they provide the ‘total restraint system’ or cocoon that we rely on. The total restraint system is designed to keep the driver stacked in his or her normal position (without deformation from this position in an accident), allowing the human body to sustain extreme instantaneous energy loads without injury. It is only when the body components see deformation or distortion during energy loads that the body sustains injuries. From my personal experience, I feel that most competitors can achieve a greater reduction in their chance of injury by upgrading their seating and harness systems to substrates that incorporate the characteristics of high energy load absorption, reduction of energy (deceleration), and without excessive deformation or failure, rather than relying on a head restraint system alone.

For instance, we find many competitors running fiberglass seats with FIA homologation tags that are under the misperception that they are in a seat safe for their use in an accident. If we look closer at the homologation standard, most drivers are shocked to find that the product is tested using a 165 pound body block. Under independent testing, it is quite clear that all fiberglass seats just barely meet the minimum of the current 24g standard and are not designed for forces that 185 pound and over body types will exert on them. This means that anyone over 165 pounds will probably not have anything left to sit in or restrain themselves at 24gs. The professionals using brands currently producing fiberglass seats are utilizing a superior substrate such as Kevlar, Carbon/Kevlar, or Carbon shells. I feel the general competitor is deceived into thinking they are achieving the same level of safety with an ordinary fiberglass seat, and yet they are far from it. We strongly suggest that one no one sit in anything less than Kevlar, Carbon/Kevlar, or Carbon shelled seats; only these materials far exceed the current 24g standard and have the correct characteristics to take extreme energy loads, absorbing the energy through controlled deflection without failure and thus achieving not only the necessary restraint to the body, but retaining a non-distorted state without over-articulation. 

Not only are we concerned about the substrate used in the shell of the seat, but also its age. All composite safety devices need to be changed out regularly, as these materials are achieved through a catalyzed reaction that results in a half-life of five years. The material will continually become harder and more brittle with age, and lose its strength and deflection capability quite rapidly after five years of life/use. This is not restricted to seats, as it applies to helmets, the HANS, and other restraint devices.   

The other great concern today is over the generalized application of back braces to all types of competition seats. Under current FIA homologation standards, composite shelled seats are tested as freestanding structures, designed to deflect under impact to absorb energy, and gradually decelerate the driver in a controlled state. By back bracing a seat, you create a rigid structure, keeping the driver correctly stacked, but transferring all energy loads consistent with the collision, and decelerating the body at the same rate as the vehicle without any reduction. Thus, the driver sustains much higher energy loads with a greater deceleration, which in turn creates a higher probability of injury.   

The current mandating of this type of device is the unfortunate result of sanctioning bodies misinterpreting and extracting only select data from a very small segment of the most recent studies conducted by FIA in conjunction with Dr. Melvin (Nascar). The most prominent study utilizes a rigid seat design with an integral rigid cage surrounded by a soft cage to absorb energy. The entire study conclusively reaffirms our belief that the driver is much better off in a seat design that keeps the occupant completely stacked in their natural position without deformation during high energy loads. What most sanctioning bodies have conveniently overlooked is the soft cage positioned outside of the rigid cocoon that serves to decelerated the rigid cage more gradually and absorb the potential transfer of energy. This soft cage construction in the unibody application of most club racecars is neither spatially or financially feasible for the vast majority of competitors in club racing.   

The application of back braced competition seats of inferior substrate construction will certainly generate injuries as previous incidents have already demonstrated. The real solution to improving driver safety in regard to restraint systems will require sanctioning bodies to take a real stance against inferior competition seat construction and define actual requirements for seating. Certainly a first step in that direction would be disallowing non-FIA certified seats, and a second step would mandating their replacement after five years from date of production (FIA tags all have manufacture dates incorporated). The final step would be eliminating those substrates in FIA certified seats that we feel are not appropriate characteristics to support the American size driver, as it can no longer be ignored on a worldwide basis.   

The other instance of great misunderstanding and application to the “total restraint system” is the predominate usage of three inch nylon webbing and latch link harness systems. Then again, in the “total restraint system” the attributes necessary to keep the driver safe is minimizing the over articulating the body in forward motion with a webbing that will retain as much of its normal length while stretching in a controlled manner to absorb energy under impact. Polyester is a much better substrate than nylon in this regard, as it reduces the elasticity in shoulder belts by 50% while stretching in a three directions, reducing chest injury criteria and tissue trauma by 50%.  Latch link hardware in a 6g deceleration over a 50 ms duration will open as the momentum of the handle under dynamic loading will overcome the friction of the detent balls holding it closed, releasing the forward part of the restraint system.  I feel that by upgrading the harness system to a three inch polyester cam-lock system can greatly reduce the chances of injury over head restraint systems for the same amount of money spent.   

If the competitor chooses to add a head restraint system in addition to these upgrades, it will provide even more insurance against injury. But, the trend today that concerns me most involves the individual who is utilizing poor seating and harness systems in conjunction with a head restraint system and believes they have achieved a safer environment to race in. Without the proper “total restraint system” supporting their head restraint device, the money spent on these systems will have only minimally reduced their chance of injury, compared to the money spent on the primary restraint system. It also begs notice that when a head restraint system is utilized by a driver it is a lethal device if improperly installed or secured during use. Our main concern in regard to the driving environment of the club racer, is the user securing the helmet himself during pre-race. There is virtually no system of checks to ensure the tethers to the helmet are safely secured as is present in the professional series with team support around the driver. If one tether is left undone or comes free during use because it was not properly secured at the beginning of the race and there is a frontal collision, the resulting injury to the neck and the base of the skull can be 100 to 1000 times greater than without the head restraint system at all.  

Source: Velocity Magazine

Issue: Fifty-Five

http://www.subesports.com

Sube Sports, safety reigns supreme!

In most business environments, the words “safety first”typify a slogan aimed at reducing workplace injuries. For Sube Sports in Huntington Beach, Calif., the words literally represent the retailer’s bottom line. Owner Chad DiMarco wouldn’t have it any other way. A former rally champion with a University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) degree in biochemistry and a physics minor, in 1987 he formed his retail establishment around a unique selling proposition: offering racing safety products on a truly global scale. And although his operation caters to racers of all stripes, DiMarco is quick to dispel the “great misconception” that his business may have somehow traveled far afield from its off-roading roots. “You have to realize my background is from rally,” DiMarco explains. “I was a factory driver for Subaru for 10 years and a five-time national champion here in the United States and U.S. Pro Rally, so my background is off-road. When I started this company while I was racing, my goal was bringing European rally products–i.e., off-road products unavailable here in the U.S.–to the American consumer.” BUSINESS RALLY

That goal developed naturally for DiMarco, who was surrounded by the thrills of off-highway motorsports from a young age. He grew up in Riverside, Calif., the renowned epicenter of celebrity off-road racing and Mickey Thompson stadium events during the industry’s fledgling era. While a freshman in college he met the woman who would become his first wife; her father was a rally racer.

“Our second date was a plane ticket to go watch the Olympus Rally in Washington,” recalls DiMarco. “I took a ride in a rally car–it did things you wouldn’t think a truck could do… That’s where I got the bug.”

Sube Sports has introduced world brands like PIAA (far left) to the American off-road consumer. Chad DiMarco (left) and his small but dedicated staff oversee walk-ins, Internet sales, and shipping to a network of nearly 350 dealers/distributors in the Western hemisphere. Their showroom (below left) is modest but well-organized.

Embarking on a rally career of his own, DiMarco spent years familiarizing himself with sponsors and racing products from throughout the world. Eventually it just made sense to market those brands to others. He started a catalog business within his Sube Sports racing enterprise during the late 1980s, and by 1994 was retiring from rallying to “step into” the venture fulltime. He quickly became the original American importer of a number of now well-known manufacturers, including PIAA lights.

Through the years–and thanks especially to the Internet–Sube Sports has grown from a small-scale general importer of foreign brands into an exclusive US/North American importer/distributor trade arm for a broad range of foreign manufacturers. In doing so, the company has also expanded into crossover venues, including road, NASCAR and formula racing, while remaining true to its off-road heritage.

“We warehouse close to $1 million in inventory now,” says DiMarco. “Our breadth of product and our breadth of customer base has changed and grown dramatically.”

Today Sube Sports claims top-rank status for what it describes as “one of the most brand-diverse safety equipment inventories in North America.” The size and scope of DiMarco’s operations are staggering, considering the company’s modest, 6,500 square-foot facility, which encompasses warehousing, offices, and a 1,500-square-foot showroom.

Sube Sports is all about safety for both pro and entry-level racers. Whether harnesses (far left) or helmets, seats and accessory items (above) owner and former rally champion Chad DiMarco refuses to carry lines he wouldn’t use himself. This philosophy has solidified his outfit’s reputation among some of off-roading’s biggest racing teams.

From that rather confined West Coast location, Sube Sports is able to move vast amounts of product through a network of nearly 350 dealers and distributors throughout the Americas, the Caribbean/Virgin Isles, Jamaica and Puerto Rico. Including DiMarco, a staff of five handles more than 3,000 phone, fax and e-mail queries monthly from throughout the world. The retailer markets through three Internet sites offering online purchasing and a 68-page color catalog detailing an inventory that currently includes 2,000 racing seats, 1,200 protective suits and more than 5,000 shoes in stock.

“We’re pretty much filled up at the moment,” laughs DiMarco. “We might have to look at relocating… It’s like living on a ship–you use space the best you can.”

Cobra, Puma, Michelin Tires, Sparco, Bell, Alpinetars and Pelkor remain the retailer’s most popular brands, and all stock items are available for same-day shipment.

SAFETY MATTERS

While DiMarco has gone global in both market reach and product offerings, one simple word still characterizes the heart and soul of Sube Sport’s business: safety. From seats, restraints and helmets to lighting, clothing and fire suppression equipment, the retailer’s focus remains driver protection for both professional racers and the general consumer.

Popular lines at Sube Sports include Michelin Tires (far left) and Cobra seats (left). A recently cemented relationship with Puma (lower left) has proven exceptionally lucrative. Over the years, Sube Sports has forged several exclusive distribution deals with major global manufacturers.

“Our customer base is all over the map,” says DiMarco, who can run down a long client roster of professional motorsports teams. “But our roots have always been in off-road racing. For instance, some of our customers include Riviera Racing, Terrible-Herbst Racing, Baldwin Racing, Robby Gordon Racing, Collins Enterprises–the list goes on and on. We’re a lot broader in the off-road market than most people seem to think.”

Big names notwithstanding, Sube Sports serves a full range of customers from professional teams to the gentleman racer to the entry-level amateur.

“That’s why we have the diversity of our product,” asserts DiMarco, adding that while his outfit caters to every experience level and budget, he refuses to compromise when it comes to protecting both his customers and his reputation.

“We draw a line with regards to the quality of the safety equipment. If I wouldn’t use it personally, then I won’t sell it,” DiMarco says emphatically. That business philosophy extends to educating customers away from “redundant purchasing.” “One of the fallacies for the beginner racer is to come in and buy the cheapest product possible,” explains DiMarco. “Then once they go and utilize that equipment for one or two races they have to go back and repurchase that item because it wasn’t up to the standard they should have bought at their primary purchase.” He cites racing suits as an example, noting that many entry-level customers will come in for an SFI/1-rated suit. However, Sube Sports refuses to sell anything less than the SFI/5-rated suit designed for 10-second protection in a 1,200-degree flame fire–the intensity of a typical gasoline fire. Experience has shown that even when customers go elsewhere to buy the lower-quality suit, they’re soon back at Sube Sports replacing it with an SFI/5. To DiMarco, it’s a needless waste of money he’d rather help consumers avoid. In fact, customers have come to rely on the no-nonsense expertise shared by the entire Sube Sports staff, all of whom are motorsports enthusiasts. While always eager to impart his ready store of technical knowledge, however, DiMarco is much more reserved when asked about revenues, profit margins and related financials.

“We’ve had a nice steady growth throughout the years with some of the exclusive contracts we’ve made,” he says coyly, happy to leave it at that.

Among the most successful of his business relationships has been Puma, for which he took on North American distribution about a year and a half ago, leading to explosive growth.

According to DiMarco, the secret to landing lucrative contracts–and indeed success in general–is to look outside the industry for market trends. For example, during the 1990s, Sube Sports took a cue from Wall Street’s prevailing business strategy at the time: downsizing and cross-training staff so that any employee could step into any task when needed.

“That allowed us to minimize our staff and maximize our outputs,” explains DiMarco, who adds that there’s also an art to choosing product. He believes far too many retailers make the mistake of “trying to join the party after the party’s half over. I’ve always striven to find that product that I believe will be the best product a couple of years from now. That’s where we see growth; that’s where the money is made–it’s like the stock market.”

Sube Sports also defies the common wisdom of devoting 10% of profits to marketing and advertising, preferring to up the ante to 18%. While the Internet has proven a vital tool for business, Sube Sports also continues to invest heavily in print media, which tends toward longer shelf life.

Considering the success of DiMarco’s business strategies thus far, it’s a safe bet Sube Sports will continue to serve the off-road racing community for a long time to come.

SOURCE

Aug 1, 2006

By:Michael Imlay

Off-Road Business

http://offroadbusinessmag.off-road.com/offroadbusinessmag/Retailer+Spotlight/Sube-Sports/ArticleStandard/Article/detail/363712?contextCategoryId=8531

http://www.subesports.com/