NACE, CARS Events Deliver Education, Knowledge To Service Providers

The 26th annual International Autobody Congress & Exposition (NACE) and the Congress of Automotive Repair & Service (CARS) delivered a solid event for those in attendance — professionals from both the collision and mechanical repair and maintenance segments of the industry. The event, held at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas from November 5-8, had over 23,000 attendees, with 362 NACE and 47 CARS exhibiting companies, and with dozens of training seminars and many free on-floor education programs and demonstrations. .

Jerry Raskind, wholesale programs manager for Toyota Motor Sales, U. S. A. Inc. said, “Toyota’s participation in CARS 2008 was a great success. By combining CARS with NACE under the Automotive Service Repair Week banner, we enjoyed an increased number of quality contacts with repair shop owners and technicians. We were able to highlight our business partnership with independent repair shops by featuring new, competitively priced parts and real-time demonstrations of online parts ordering and access to factory repair information. We are looking forward to next year’s event!”

In addition, service providers had their pick of nine ICARTechnical Training courses, one PCI course, four ASE Test Prep Classes (mechanical and collision focused), the new TRAIN the TRAINER session, as well as eight on-floor ICAR Technology Showcase clinics and the numerous exhibitor sponsored on-floor educational opportunities each day.

Next year’s event will be held at the Mandalay Bay Convention from November 4-7, 2009 in Las Vegas. The educational Conference will run Nov. 4-7 (Wednesday -Saturday), and the Exposition will be open Nov. 5-7 (Thursday -Saturday).