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SEMA Wheel & Tire Council Announces 2017 Hall of Fame Inductees

By SEMA Editors

Robinson
Carl Robinson
finch
George Finch

SEMA’s Wheel & Tire Council (WTC) announced that Carl Robinson and George Finch will be inducted into the WTC Hall of Fame during the 2017 SEMA Show in Las Vegas. The 2017 WTC Hall of Fame inductees will be recognized during the council’s annual industry reception on October  31.

“I am delighted to announce that Carl Robinson and George Finch, two longtime select committee members of SEMA’s Wheel & Tire Council, will be inducted into the WTC Hall of Fame in recognition of their many contributions to the work of our council and to the automotive aftermarket industry at large,” said WTC Chair Gregory Parker, national account sales and marketing director at Wegmann Automotive. “For many years, these men have willingly shared their professional and technical expertise in helping to address issues facing our industry, and we’re excited to be able to honor them in this way.”

Robinson has spent more than three decades in the performance aftermarket industry and served as a WTC select committee member for 10 years. He was director of motorsports for Weld Racing Wheels for 13 years and worked for a decade with Mickey Thompson Performance Tires & Wheels in the motorsports and new product development divisions.

Robinson is principal of Race Wheel Enterprises, where he handles marketing and sales for InduraPower lithium-ion batteries and consults with a wheel manufacturer on a project for the performance aftermarket industry. He also serves as a race-day announcer for the Professional Drag Racing Association. A New York native and a graduate of Denver Automotive & Diesel College, Robinson resides in the Flagstaff, Arizona, area.

Finch has more than 20 years of experience in product development, including the areas of product portfolio planning, voice-of-customer research, product design and performance analysis, product lab and field testing, and product sales and vitality index analysis. Finch served as a WTC select committee member for more than 16 years and was elected council chairman in 2006. During his tenure, he was instrumental in the implementation of J2530, an SAE-recommended practice that provides performance and sampling requirements, test procedures and marking requirements for aftermarket wheels intended for normal highway use on passenger cars, light trucks and multipurpose passenger vehicles.

Finch worked with American Racing for 10 years, serving as CAE/R&D engineering lead and manager of research and development. He was senior product design engineer for Exemplis LLC, and presently is principal engineer for the wheel product line at The Carlstar Group in Los Angeles. He is a graduate of California State Polytechnic University-Pomona with a BSME in mechanical engineering.

The WTC Hall of Fame was founded to recognize and honor outstanding individuals in the wheel and tire industry whose creativity, dignity, integrity, industriousness and accomplishments on a national basis have enhanced the status of the industry, while significantly contributing to its growth, progress and professionalism.

For more information on SEMA’s Wheel & Tire Council, visit www.sema.org/wtc.