ASI LIMITED is Revved Up for Race Fest

ASI LIMITED is hosting an open house, of sorts, today at its new facility in Whitestown, Ind. While a number of architects, general contractors and vendors will be touring the glazing contractor's new manufacturing and administrative headquarters, they'll also get the chance to be truly out in the open while watching the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Powerstroke Diesel 200 at the O'Reilly Raceway Park in Indianapolis as part of the company's fourth annual Race Fest.

"It's become an annual event, but this year it's a little bit different because we have a brand new facility," says Shawn Stewart, communications manager for ASI LIMITED and marketing/PR manager for SS-GreenLight Racing, the NASCAR truck series team co-owned by ASI president Ken Smith.

(From Left) Ben Mitchell of Akzo Nobel and Shawn Stewart, Jim Hook and Jim Luegers of ASI LIMITED, stand with the #07 ASI LIMITED Chevy.

Race Fest attendees will have an opportunity to tour ASI LIMITED's new 180,000-square-foot facility.

Smith, who has been in the glass business for 30 years, got into racing as a hobby before developing it into a business.

"He got into racing [when] he was turning 40 and went with a good friend of his on vacation, and they agreed that each of them would do something that they always wanted to do," Stewart says. "His friend went skydiving and Smith said he always wanted to drive a racecar. So he went through a racing school, where he drove a car and went through this program, and was actually in a small wreck. He didn't get hurt, it wasn't anything serious but he realized that being the driver was not for him."

Although he may be removed one step from the racetrack, Smith is still very much involved.

As Stewart says, "The glazing certainly came long before the racing, but the racing has really become intimately involved with the marketing plan of ASI."

The company holds small-scale events similar to today's across the country, throughout the year as a networking and marketing opportunity.

"Just like any other company, how ASI is built was on relationships-not that the racing is really the only way they do that but it certainly helps," Stewart says. "It just becomes five to eight hours of getting to know somebody and also a fun event, rather than trying to call on someone or hand them a brochure or traditional type of marketing-and it's worked."

The race may be a highlight, but it's certainly not the main attraction of today's open house. As Stewart explains, "We just finished construction [on the new facility] a couple of months ago so a lot of the people who work with us on a daily basis haven't seen that facility. In year's past they would come to the offices here but we were in two different locations. Now everything is under one roof, so we'll start the day off there and tour the shop and have lunch, see what goes on inside the walls of ASI, and then go down to the race event."

The new building brings together what was previously separate administrative offices and fabrication facility, while adding plenty of additional space for both.

"We just wanted to have everything right there, so now everything flows," Stewart says. "It's all right there, and the guys who are in there designing things can walk ten feet and they're there in the shop, seeing the actual product. That's probably the biggest advantage, that everything is in-house now."

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