2008 SEMA Spring Expo & OffRoad Review

Saturday, February 16, 2008

The 2008 SEMA Spring Expo and SEMA OffRoad were held on the weekend of February 8-9 at the Indiana Convention Center in downtown Indianapolis. The focus of the Spring Expo, which also contains the co-located SEMA OffRoad show, is to bring together products, trends and innovation for trucks, SUVs and more. With the OffRoad show there as well, this had the feel of a show for geared specifically for the truck/Jeep/SUV market. So, while there were two sportscars and one race car to be found on the show floor, the rest consisted of trucks and SUV's. I attended in a search for anything new and exciting for the Honda Ridgeline.

I must admit, having attended the SEMA show in Las Vegas in the past, this show had me looking for doors to additional showrooms. There were none. This show is small enough that I was able to walk every aisle for a quick review in about 30 minutes. The Vegas show can leave you sore from walking for two days. Granted, the Spring Expo is intended to reach a narrow market segment, but even then...attendance was low. Here is a quick look at some of the businesses with displays on the show floor that you may recognize...

• Flowmaster
• PIAA
• Skyjacker Suspensions
• Truxxx Manufacturing
• 3M
• A.R.E.
• Leer / Raider / Century / Pace Edwards
• Roll-N-Lock Corp.
• Thule, Inc.
• Tonneau Masters
• TruXedo

I think Skyjacker has to take the prize for the most "bling" in one spot. With two custom trucks on display (see photos on the right) and their extra-long transport truck, there was a lot of money sitting in their space.

For those on the ROC already, you know that Roll-N-Lock has been involved on our forum and is a current sponsor. I had good conversation with Dan from Roll-N-Lock. It's worth noting they were the only vendor with a Ridgeline in their booth. It has been a big success for them. Same goes for Pace Edwards, another current sponsor on ROC. I wasn't able to track anyone down for a visit, but their presence was strong in the middle of the show floor.

I also had a good conversation with contacts from several other companies, including Truxxx. Even though the Ridgeline is not really meant to do hardcore off-road, it's still safe to say that you'll be seeing more companies on the ROC soon in some capacity. There were several companies there with products for the Ridgeline and most were already familiar with this site.

I'll close by saying that downtown Indianapolis is one of the nicest, cleanest, well thought-out downtowns I have ever been to. We were there nearly a decade ago and found it to be nice, but this trip left us very impressed.

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