E3 Spark Plugs News

It’s official! E3 Spark Plugs’ spark and glow plugs are now the official plugs of the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA). The multi-year sponsorship agreement revs up in 2013. It means you’ll see the E3 logo in NHRA advertising, promotional and point-of-purchase materials, and on product packaging. From the tracks and pits at the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series events, you’ll see our signs and crazy inflatables, and we’ll be incorporated into advertising via NHRA’s multimedia outlets and commercial inventory in the ESPN2/ESPN2HD broadcasts.

“We at E3 are very excited to be the official spark plug and glow plug of NHRA. Our customers and the NHRA fan are all about power and performance, something we understand completely,” said Todd Arey, president of E3 Spark Plugs. “We are committed to helping them achieve those goals, and it is with great enthusiasm that E3 Spark Plugs partners with the National Hot Rod Association, the clear global leader in championship drag racing.”

Adds John Siragusa, NHRA senior director of sales and business development: “E3 Spark Plugs has been involved for a number of years and has long seen the value of association with NHRA. We are excited to have E3 Spark Plugs increase their involvement in the sport by becoming an official sponsor.”

Founded by Wally Parks in 1951, the NHRA is North American drag racing’s governing body, setting rules and hosting events throughout the U.S. and Canada. With over 80,000 drivers in its rosters, it’s considered one of the largest motorsports sanctioning bodies in the world.

Backed by a five-year, 100,000-mile warranty, E3 spark plugs, with our patented DiamondFIRE side-wire electrode, project the combustion spark in a way that more quickly ignites the air/fuel mixture, thereby creating a significantly faster and larger flame kernel. In effect, this burns more of the available fuel, resulting in increased combustion efficiency for improved power and fuel economy with reduced emissions. E3 spark plugs are available for most automotive, small-engine, and powersports applications at automotive and home-improvement retail stores nationwide. E3 glow plugs were introduced at the recent 2012 SEMA Show in Las Vegas.

Halloween is meant for spooky fun. But impaired drivers and excited trick-or-treaters make it one of the most dangerous nights on the highways and residential streets.

Across the country, children, teens and adults will be out on the highways and residential roadways celebrating Halloween. It’s a fun, fantastical time of year. But it can quickly turn into a real-life horror story for drivers and trick-or-treaters.

The statistics are scary. Upwards of 60 percent of highway fatalities involve drunk drivers on Halloween night. And four times as many children between five and 14 are killed while walking on Halloween night compared to an average evening, according to the Centers for Disease Control. E3 Spark Plugs offers a few Halloween safety tips:

• Designate a driver: If you’re planning to enjoy a few adult beverages this Halloween, designating a non-drinking driver is a must. Not only are other partying adults likely to be driving impaired, but trick-or-treating children are out in full force. It’s critical for even the soberest of drivers to drive slowly and carefully through neighborhood streets.
• Choose costumes wisely: If you’re the parent of a trick-or-treating child, encourage them to choose a light- or bright-colored costume to help make them more easily visible to drivers. If your young Dracula insists upon a dark colored costume, place reflective tape on portions of the costume, props and candy bag or bucket. The reflective tape will gleam in the beam of a headlight, alerting drivers. Also make sure that long, flowing costumes are short enough to avoid a tripping hazard, and that masks have large enough eye holes to allow for full peripheral vision. Kids will be kids, and excited trick-or-treating kids are bound to dart across streets for the next handful of candy.
• Minimize your time on the road: Opt for Halloween parties and trick-or-treating spots close to your home, or plan to spend the night at or near the home or venue where you’ll celebrate. Better yet, throw a party at your own home. Know that even the most careful drivers are at risk as long as there are impaired drivers on the roadways, and you can bet that will be the case throughout the Halloween week and weekend.

From all of us here at E3 Spark Plugs, have a safe and happy Halloween.

Crash test dummies are getting smarter and increasingly high-tech.

In geek-speak, they’re called anthropomorphic test devices (ATDs). We here at E3 Spark Plugs call them by their more common name – crash test dummies. Only trouble is, they’re not dummies at all. In fact, today’s ATDs are smarter and more lifelike than ever.

On August 31, 1869, Ireland’s Mary Ward gained the unfortunate distinction of becoming the world’s first recorded victim of a motor vehicle accident when she fell beneath the wheels of an experimental steam car built by her cousins. Three decades later, Henry Bliss would step off a New York trolley and get fatally hit by a passing electric-powered taxi cab, becoming the first recorded U.S. victim of a car accident. Since then, more than 20 million people worldwide have died due to motor vehicle accidents, according to some statistics.

By the 1930s, as automobiles became more of fixture in peoples’ daily lives, the need for making them safer was evident. Early efforts to study the effects of auto accidents on the human body were crude, to say the least. The first crash test subjects were human cadavers. But their use was pretty much one-time-only and, as you can imagine, raised moral and ethical scrutiny.

Perhaps foreshadowing the Johnny Knoxville, Spike Jonze and Jeff Tremaine-created Jackass craze, a few highly committed researchers began volunteering as live human crash test dummies (perhaps an even more accurate use of the latter word than today). These noble-minded individuals withstood tests that involved being smashed in the chest with heavy metal pendulums, hit in the face with pneumatically driven rotary hammers, and sprayed with shattered glass to simulate window implosion. And we’ve seen video of live subjects behind the wheel of cars careening downhill jump out the driver’s door just before the vehicle crashes into walls, fences, ponds, etc. Of course, these tests could go only so far in terms of the potential degree of physical injury.

Next up – animal testing in the 1950s and 1960s.

“We saw chimpanzees riding rocket sleds, a bear on an impact swing…We observed a pig, anesthetized and placed in a sitting position on the swing in the harness, crashed into a deep-dish steering wheel at about 10 mph,” wrote author Mary Roach describing the Eighth Stapp Car Crash and Field Demonstration Conference. We trust we don’t have to explain the outrage over that.

Fortunately, crash tests have since taken a much more sane and humane approach. Enter “Sierra Sam,” the first known actual crash test dummy developed in 1949 by Samuel W. Alderson at his Alderson Research Labs, and Sierra Engineering Co. to test aircraft ejection seats, aviation helmets and pilot restraint harnesses. A few years later, the team created a dummy designed for tests in both aircraft and motor vehicles.

Since Sierra Sam’s arrival, automakers like General Motors have taken up development of crash test dummies designed specifically for motor vehicle testing and built to mimic the bodies of men, women, infants and children of all stages. The latest generation of ATDs is ultra high-tech with sensors that can measure 2 million data points per second. We here at E3 Spark Plugs are duly impressed, not to mention thankful for all the hard work and innovation that goes into crash testing. Take a look at this recent segment of CBS This Morning for an eye-opening look at how these super smart dummies are making the roadways safer for you and your family.

Competitive tractor puller Tammie Huenink dedicates her efforts in her White Lightning tractor to breast cancer awareness.

After six years serving as secretary for the Outlaw Hot Rod Tractor Pulling Association, Tammie Huenink decided to get out from behind the desk and climb up behind the wheel instead. It proved to be a smart move. In her very first season pulling modified hot rod tractors, she finished the season fourth in the Colorado Truck and Tractor Pullers Association (CTTPA) and fifth in the Outlaws. She enters her next season as a Team E3 Racing Tier 2 winner.

Her first pull was a bit nerve-wracking, says Huenink, who made her track debut in Mitchell, Nebraska driving her father-in-law’s tractor, dubbed Wild Fire.

“I’m not sure who was more nervous him or me,” Huenink recalls. “I was wondering why in the world I had now decided to strap myself into this mechanical contraption on four wheels with 900 horsepower hooked to a sled to go, hopefully, 300 feet down a dirt track. It seemed insane!”

Perhaps, but there was no turning back now. So, Huenink simply focused on her father-in-law’s words of wisdom – “Keep it between the ditches and don’t let up ’til the red flag falls” – and soldiered on. That was all it took to transform Huenink into a bona fide dirt diva.

From there, Huenink formed her official family team, the Dirt Diva Pulling Team. And it is, indeed a family affair. Husband Jason built her a new tractor. Her father, a U.S. Army veteran, chose the name “White Lightning” for the tractor, which bears the 65th Engineer Combat Battalion insignia as well as an R-9 Racing logo, honoring her father-in-law. But most prominent is the “Tough Enough” pink ribbon logo signifying Dirt Diva’s support in the fight against breast cancer in honor of her Huenink’s mother and husband Jason’s grandmother.

The Dirt Diva Pulling Team’s efforts raise funds to help women facing breast cancer cover costs of traveling to their doctors’ appointments and chemotherapy treatments. As one of just a handful of female competitive tractor pullers in the U.S., Huenink does countless media interviews and fan meet-and-greets, allowing her a public platform for carrying out her team’s message. We here at E3 Spark Plugs are proud to help her do just that.

E3 Spark Plugs is giving you the chance to see the tracks from behind the wheel of one of these. Enter to win a trip to the 2012 E3 Spark Plugs Utah Off Road Nationals Presented By Toyota at Miller Motorsports Park.

Itching for a change of scenery? How about the wide open expanses of Utah? And how about seeing it from the behind the wheel of a Baja Challenge race car? Or a Ford Racing Mustang GT? Or Jerry Daugherty’s new Pro 4 #24 off-road racing truck? Or from the window of the Lucas Oil corporate helicopter.

While all that may sound like a far-fetched dream, E3 Spark Plugs is making it a reality for one lucky winner and a guest of his or her choosing. Winning is easy. Just go to the E3 Spark Plugs Facebook Fan Page and fill out the contest submission form on the Off Road Contest Tab. Tell us why you want to win and who you’ll bring.

Here’s what you get if your name is chosen:

• Airfare for two and accommodations for three nights;
• Two tickets to the Lucas Oil Off-Road Racing event at Miller Motorsports;
• A two-hour Mustang Experience, putting you behind the wheel of a Ford Racing Mustang GT;
• A Wide Open Utah ultimate high-performance off-road Baja-style driving experience;
• A ride in the E3 Spark Plugs Daugherty Off-Road Truck;
• A ride in the Lucas Oil Helicopter;
• Two tickets to one of the top Kart road courses in America.

Make sure you read the rules first. You must be at least 18 years of age and a resident of one of the 48 contiguous states or District of Columbia. The contest runs from March 31st, 2012 till May 25, 2012 and you’ll take your trip June 21-23. Good luck!

"Where the Boys Are" became a massive box office hit and made spring break a mainstream cultural phenomenon.

The spring break season is well underway and college students are headed to the beaches in hoards. The kids these days, they think this annual collegiate-sponsored week of academic and social wantonness has always been around. Truth is, it came to be in the late 1950s and its wild popularity was ultimately inspired by a Michigan State University student with a candy apple red convertible.

It was the writings of an MSU English professor and novelist, and a subsequent now-classic film that helped launched this American cultural phenomenon into the international mainstream. Glendon Swarthout, PhD was teaching an honors English class in 1958 when he overheard a student – the kid with the red convertible sports car – talking up a planned trip to Fort Lauderdale, Florida over the university’s spring break. Intrigued, Swarthout, a colorful character who fancied himself a reincarnation of Ernest Hemingway complete with the mustache, began asking his students about their plans for the week. Lo and behold, a group of students invited him to join them and he gladly accepted.

His week immersed in the bikinied and swim trunked coed scene proved an eye-opening experience that gave Swarthout unprecedented insight – and a great book idea. By this time, the professor and novelist had already seen two of his writings turned into films. His novel, They Came to Cordura (1958) became a film of the same name starring Gary Cooper and Rita Hayworth.  His short story A Horse for Mrs. Custer had hit the silver screen as Seventh Calvary (1956) starring Randolph Scott and Barbara Hale. His next novel, Where the Boys Are, would become a New York Times best seller and the subsequent movie of the same name starring crooner cutie Connie Francis the defining cinematic touchstone of a generation.

To fully understand why, you’ll have to read the book, in which main character Merritt and her friends set out to enjoy a week of heady fun, all the while wary of the goings-on in the world around them – namely, the Cold War, nuclear bombs and sexual experimentation. As with most screenplays adapted from novels, the film version of Where the Boys Are is a cleaned up, less controversial, commercial product, but it became a record-breaking box office hit.

Literary controversy and commercial film cheesiness aside, what we here at E3 Spark Plugs love about Where the Boys Are is the abundance of vintage rides that get some screen time, mostly 1940s and 1950s convertibles and what appears to be a 1930s-era S&S 12-column funeral coach. Heck, you could fit a dozen of your dearest friends in some of those roomy rides. So which would you pick for a spring break excursion? Post your picks and pics on the E3 Spark Plugs Facebook fan page.

Scott Evans' 1965 Mustang Shelby Cobra was stolen while he was in Japan, serving in the Marines. Twenty-five years later, he was back behind the wheel of his automotive first love.

We at E3 Spark Plugs are a pretty likeable crew. But if there’s one type of person we just can’t stand it’s a car thief. According to the National Insurance Crime  Bureau’s recently released Hot Wheels Classics report on that American automotive icon, the Ford Mustang, it’s the 2000 model that most attracts a certain scourge of society. The study shows it’s the Mustang model most likely to end up jacked, stripped, VIN-falsified and sold. The classic models get plenty of attention from thieves, too. But now and then, it’s the rightful owners that get the last laugh.

Case in point: Scott Evans and his 1965 Shelby GT350. In 1982, Evans was in the Marines serving his country in Japan when he got some sobering news from his father, who had helped him buy the car in 1971. Evans’ prized ride had been stolen from his childhood home in Havelock, N.C. (Yes, we notice the irony here.)

Evans promised his father, who has since passed away, that he would one day find the car. And he did – A quarter of a century later.

The thieves took Evans’ Shelby to a restoration shop where they altered the VIN plate and sold it to a guy in Long Island, N.Y., who sold it to another gentleman three years later. The second buyer passed away and the Shelby was willed to his son. In 2007, the son and then-current owner got a call from the director of the Shelby American Automobile Club, who had stumbled across records and developed a hunch that the car, now in the family for more than two decades, was stolen.

Evans, of course, was elated to learn that his automotive first love had been found. But getting it back would prove a bit of a hurdle. The car had been taken out of NCIC (National Crime Information Center), the FBI’s online database of criminal information years before and had to be reentered and active in the system before police could take it from its current owners. A bit of sleuthing by the SAAC verified the bogus VIN. But there were a few other telltale signs that only Evans would have recognized – a cracked steering wheel spoke, a homemade rubber bumper he crafted to keep the gas cap from scratching the car’s paint job, and his name written in black in on the top of the transmission.

Evans paid $1,600 for the car in 1971. And while he was under no legal obligation, he did the honorable thing and paid the most recent owner $12,000 to cover the cost of the new engine he’d just had installed. To would-be buyers, Evans’ mint-condition Shelby is estimated to be worth anywhere from $250,000 to upwards of $400,000. But we have serious doubts Evan’s plans to part with the car anytime soon. After all, you just can’t put a price on a first love.

E3 Spark Plugs congratulates Evans on the highly unlikely return of his car, and the team who pulled off the near-impossible to write a 25-year wrong. Check out the short documentary about the reunion below. And if you’ve got a great story about a stolen classic coming home, we want to hear it. Post your stories and pics on the E3 Spark Plugs Facebook fan page.

Tom Mix's 1937 supercharged Cord 812 convertible roadster, in which he was killed in a 1940 crash, appears at the Amelia Island Concours d'Elegance this weekend.

If you’re in the North Florida area this weekend, E3 Spark Plugs recommends hitting the Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance. The 17th annual event starts today and runs through Sunday. On the marquis this year are several gorgeous classics owned by some of Old Hollywood’s most iconic stars.

Among the stars of the 2012 event is Natalie Woods’ Mercedes-Benz 300SL, which has been meticulously restored right down to the hose clamps, the period-correct Becker in-dash radio, and Woods’ owner documents in the glove box. The German roadster bears a traditional factory-approved silver-blue color. But it didn’t always look like it does today.

“She had it painted pink,” says Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance founder and Chairman Bill Warner of Woods’ unconventional color choice. “Pink with a lipstick red leather interior, as if driving a 300SL around Hollywood didn’t attract enough attention.”

Another head-turner on display this year is Ginger Rogers’ 265HP 1929 Model J Dusenberg, the unofficial car of the stars throughout the 1930s. Gary Cooper, Clark Gable and Tyrone Powers drove them, too. But Rogers’ ride was quite unique. It was the first Murphy-bodied Duesenberg and the first from the Pasadena, Calif. custom coach building emporium to have a disappearing convertible top. Though the original is long gone, current owner John Groendyke has carefully replicated the car’s reptile-pattern embossed leather upholstery. If you’re a true film buff, you may recognize Rogers’ Model J from the 1933 film The Gay Divorcee, the second of the Ginger Rogers-Fred Astaire musicals.

Not to miss is a 1937 supercharged Cord 812 convertible roadster with an eerie history. Only 196 were made and this particular one was owned by cowboy film great Tom Mix. Known as the original Hollywood good guy in the white hat, Mix was one of America’s first Western movie stars. In fact, he practically created the Western movie genre single-handedly and was so respected among his peers that he was chosen as a pall bearer at Wyatt Earp’s funeral.

In October of 1940, Mix was driving the Cord along Arizona Route 79 and stopped at the famed Oracle Junction Inn to place a call to his manager. Less than an hour down the road, Mix apparently missed signs that warned of a bridge under repair ahead. He crashed into the construction site and was killed when an aluminum suit case filled with money and securities flew forward from the backseat and hit Mix in the head.

The car remained in its crashed state until it was bought at auction in 2010 and underwent an intensive 18-month frame-off restoration. How does it look now?

“Exactly as it did 15 minutes before the crash,” says owner Bob White. “Our biggest challenge has been determining what it looked like in 1940 and then reproducing those parts because everything had to be handmade.”

Mix’s Cord is one of just three with a rare set of options including an external-mounted spare tire. The other two belonged to actress Barbara Stanwyk and jazz singer Al Jolson.

Also on display at the Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance is Rita Hayworth’s Ghia-bodied Cadillac and Roger Miller’s Cobra Daytona Coupe – the one that settled a score for Cobra creator Carroll Shelby against Enzo Ferrari. Just six were hand-constructed for the 1964 and 1965 World Championship racing season, which Shelby nearly won in 1964. Instead, he was out maneuvered by Ferrari, who lobbied to have the final race of the 1964 season cancelled, a move that beat Shelby’s Cobra by default. Shelby’s response: “Next year, Ferrari’s ass is mine.”

Miller drove the car to victory the very next year, unseating Ferrari as the World GT Champion.

Do you plan to attend the Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance? Be sure to post your pics on the E3 Spark Plugs Facebook fan page.

11-year-old Annabeth Barnes (with father, Darren Barnes, a retired pro racecar driver) struggles to balance being a future pro racer and a regular kid in "Racing Dreams."

It’s been described as Talladega Nights meets Catcher in the Rye. And it’s E3 Spark Plug’s latest must-see film pick. Racing Dreams is a highly acclaimed documentary co-executive produced by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson chronicling the efforts of three tweens as they pave the way to their NASCAR dreams.

This coming-of-age story follows Annabeth Barnes (11), Josh Hobson (12) and Brandon Warren (13) as they compete for the World Karting Association’s National Series championship – widely regarded as the Little League of professional racing. These kids are still several years away from being old enough to get their learner’s licenses. But they’re regularly booking it at speeds of up to 70 miles per hour on the go-cart tracks.

Barnes of Hiddenite, North Carolina is the daughter of retired pro racecar driver Darren Barnes. It’s clear that racing is in her blood. She’s the youngest person ever selected for NASCAR’s Drive for Diversity and spends nearly every weekend at the track. But she struggles to balance her love and natural talent for racing with her desires to be a regular kid.

Hobson, who lives in Birch Run, Michigan, first revved his racing engines at age five and spends his off-time studying the driving styles and interview techniques of NASCAR drivers in a years-long bid to become the consummate racing professional.

"Racing Dreams" is co-executive produced by Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson.

For Creedmore, North Carolina’s Brandon Warren, racing isn’t just a passion. It’s also an escape and an outlet for coping with a difficult home life. Warren lives with his grandparents and is a charismatic comic one minute, an angry young man with a fiery temper the next. He’s in the running to win the same championship that he lost the year before when he was disqualified for rough driving.

Directed by Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Marshall Curry, Racing Dreams is as much about young love, family struggles and the pressures of growing up as it is about racing. Both humorous and heartbreaking, it has racked up multiple awards on the film festival circuit including Best Documentary awards at the Tribeca Film Festival, Nashville Film Festival and Jacksonville Film Festival; Audience Award props at the Florida Film Festival and the Indianapolis Film Festival; and the Silver Hugo Award at the Chicago Film Festival. The film made its television debut this week on PBS’ POV and can be seen in its entirety on the POV website through March 24. DVDs are available on the Racing Dreams website.

E3 Spark Plugs sends props and best wishes to Annabeth, Josh, Brandon and all the other young drivers chasing their pro racing dreams.

RACING DREAMS TRAILER 166m from N/A on Vimeo.

Proud owner of a Ford Mustang? You'll want to see the NICB's recently released Hot Wheels Classics report.

And by hot, we don’t mean sleek and sexy. We mean stolen. Swiped. Jacked. Gone in 60 seconds, and not in the good way. For over 25 years, the National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB) has published its annual Hot Wheels report, pinpointing America’s 10 most stolen vehicles of each year – something we here at E3 Spark Plugs watch for each January. But 2012 marks the first year that it’s published a Hot Wheels Classics report focusing on a particular make and model. What better choice for a debut than the Ford Mustang, arguably America’s most iconic muscle car?

Researchers made some surprising conclusions. While conventional thinking would place newer and pricier Mustangs atop a most-stolen list, the data suggests that thieves prefer older, less flashy models. Namely, it was the 2000 Pony that topped hijacker’s target lists over the past decade. Figures show that 7,085 2000 Mustangs were reported stolen between 2001 and 2011, followed by 6,790 1995 models and 5,394 1998 Ponies.

Here’s a rundown of the figures for top Mustang thefts by model year over the past 10 years:

• 2000 model – 7,085 stolen
• 1995 model – 6,790 stolen
• 1998 model – 5.394 stolen
• 2001 model – 5,103 stolen
• 2002 model – 4,226 stolen
• 2003 model – 3,966 stolen
• 1994 model – 3,949 stolen
• 2004 model – 3,234 stolen
• 1996 model – 3,045 stolen
• 1989 model – 2,629 stolen

All total, 45,421 Mustangs were reported stolen throughout the past decade. To get to these figures, NICB researchers reviewed data from 1964 to 2011. Keep in mind, though, that pre-1981 records are questionable. Researchers cite inconsistency in reporting protocols and in VIN (vehicle identification number) protocols before they were standardized by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in 1981. Click here to for the press release with a link to the full, downloadable report.

Got the lowdown on a possible car theft or insurance fraud? Report it anonymously by calling 1-800-TEL-NICB (1-800-835-6422), texting keyword “fraud” to TIP411 (847411) or visiting the NICB website.

In our next blog, E3 Spark Plugs offers a few tips on protecting your ride from thieves.