You’ve read that right — Five Star Race Car Bodies decided to reduce its prices on its plastic products for the upcoming season. The move boiled down to a promise made by company founder Carl Schultz.
Like many other segments of the racing industry, Five Star had to raise its prices after the pandemic hit in 2020.
“The Covid era produced price increases and extended lead times for raw materials that we have never seen in all the years we have been in business,” Schultz said. “[That] put our costs way beyond what we could absorb to stay in business. We had no choice but to raise our prices accordingly.”
Schultz promised to lower prices if the cost of raw materials went down. He has delivered upon that promise.
“Now that the world is recovering, material prices are starting to drift down and lead times are getting back to normal,” said Schultz. “So, we are excited to reduce our prices.”
For example, Five Star Race Car Bodies reduced the price for its dirt late model nose by $62, to $507. Prices for other plastic body pieces also dropped substantially. For Schultz, integrity is more important than profit.
“Keeping our margins low and not pocketing the extra money when our raw material prices are going down is not who we are,” Schultz said. “Dropping prices is just one of the many ways of us doing what we can to help racers.”
In an age where everything has increased in price, from groceries to tires, racers welcomed the pricing decrease from Five Star Race Car Bodies.
“Barring any unexpected circumstances, our prices will not change for 2024,” said Schultz. “Our raw material costs are still not back to pre-Covid numbers, yet, but if this trend continues, maybe there will be an opportunity to reduce prices again for 2025.”
The Outside Groove Director of Photography has written hundreds of stories since the website’s inception. This year marks his 54th year of covering auto racing. Adaskaveg got his start working for track photographer Lloyd Burnham at Connecticut’s Stafford Motor Speedway in 1970. Since then, he’s been a columnist, writer, and photographer, in racing and in mainstream media, for several outlets, including the Journal Inquirer, Boston Herald, Stock Car Racing, and Speedway Illustrated. Among Adaskaveg’s many awards are the 1992 Eastern Motorsport Press Association (EMPA) Ace Lane Photographer of the Year and the 2019 National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA) George Cunningham Writer of the Year.
