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TRUCKING 16 www.FlatbedTruckingJobs.com December 2015 Electric racing series fine-tunes upcoming transportation tech TOOLS by Jack Roberts T alladega weekend happened in Octo- ber here in Alabama, where Flatbed Trucking Jobs is based. Racing today is more sport and spectacle than anything else. But for a remarkably long period of time, racing was vitally im- portant to the automotive industry at large. In the very early days of the automobile, racing's primary purpose was to create interest in a wholly new mode of trans- portation and, it was hoped, help create a customer base interested in buying one of the new-fangled contraptions. Equally important, however, was the secondary role racing played, which was to convince potential customers that au- tomobiles were tough enough to provide reliable service and usefulness on the poor roads in place at the time. That's why early races were often endur- ance tests as opposed to fl at-out racing like we know today. In many cases, simply getting your vehicle across the fi nish line of a 50- or 60-mile course was a major victory for a manufacturer. As the sport matured, industry suppliers recognized that racing was essentially a compressed-time laboratory that allowed them to test and refi ne their products in grueling competitive conditions. Tire, lubricant, fuel and other component suppliers quickly put their products on or in race cars to see how they performed. Victories translated into major advertising campaigns and resulting sales. Losers (as A competitor in the Formula E series A glimpse at the 2014 London-held Formula E races.