While Scorpion Performance is a leading American manufacturer of top quality valve train parts for high performance street and racing applications, Scorpion Racing Products is the company that markets and distributes those products. Scorpion Racing Products is rapidly achieving a leading market position by focusing on the quality of its products, fast distribution, and strong customer relationships.
Scorpion Performance evolved from an offshore powerboat race team and group of engine builders led by Scorpion president and CEO, Robert Stopanio and his wife, Teresa. Together, they operated a very successful engine building company, Blue Thunder Engines, and won numerous offshore powerboat racing championships using their own power plants.
Due to Stopanio's success in building engines for the powerboat market, demand for his engines began to grow from circle track and drag racing teams as well. Asphalt circle track racers, dirt track racers and 1/4-mile drag racers all came to Blue Thunder Engines because of the company's outstanding reputation for speed and durability. Stopanio and his engine team had hundreds of years of combined experience, and it showed in every race-winning engine they built. The team was very technically inclined and tested new innovations constantly. With over 30 years of racing experience, Stopanio's team, engines and parts are responsible for 32 national championships in various racing series. Not surprisingly, most of Stopanio's team is still working with him today.
After a very successful career in racing and engine building, Rob and Teresa Stopanio decided to go into manufacturing some of the parts that go into high performance racing engines. Because they had first-hand racing experience, they knew what endurance and tolerance levels engine parts needed to have in order to last and to win. Thus, Scorpion Performance was born in 1999 and rocker arms were the first parts produced. Today, Scorpion is the world's largest manufacturer of roller rocker arms. The company also produces lifters, pushrods, valves, valve springs, valve train stabilizers (stud girdles), throttle bodies, fuel rail kits and more.
Scorpion is successful in part because it manufactures products using the most technologically advanced tools and machines in the world. By utilizing today's and tomorrow's most sophisticated technology, Scorpion is able to maintain its leadership role in producing the absolute finest precision parts. This technology also enables the company to achieve superior quality at economies of scale that allows Scorpion to make its prices ultra-competitive.
Scorpion has proven that its fully automated, robotically controlled tooling, combined with its round-the-clock production capacity, effectively offsets the low wage advantage the Far East relies on and beats countries such as China at their own game. This productivity is a major marketing point for Scorpion, and of course, faster manufacturing means faster distribution to customers. But the icing on the cake is the priceless advantage of being able to stamp "MADE IN USA" on these products!
Scorpion is also successful because it performs intense research and testing on every product it manufactures. An in-house engine building department, a dynometer, and real world use in numerous Scorpion-sponsored race vehicles including drag race cars, circle track race cars and offshore race boats enable the company to test its products for quality and durability under the most intense conditions. Every product Scorpion makes is dyno tested and race proven before it is ever offered for sale to the public. The result of this is top quality race winning parts and very satisfied customers.
Simply put, Scorpion Performance beats the competition by offering its customers superior quality that meets and beats Far East pricing and delivery schedules. Plus, while most U.S. competitors are locked into old machinery and traditional manufacturing techniques, Scorpion Performance is committed to updating and replacing its sophisticated tooling at least every three years. The company's manufacturing processes are also continually updated to achieve greater efficiency and higher quality.
The economic implications of Scorpion's ability to say "Made in America"
The staggering trade imbalance the U.S. has worked its way into has reached precarious levels; most noteworthy in the disastrous devaluation of the dollar vs. most major world currencies. Much of this is the result of U.S. companies and marketers rushing to low-wage manufacturers, primarily in the Far East.
The U.S. Auto industry is the No. 1 contributor to America's trade imbalance despite the influx of foreign car manufacturers to set up assembly plants in this country. Computers are the No. 2 source of the nation's reliance on offshore companies and workers.
And No. 3 is Motor Vehicle Parts.
Recently, 32% of all motor vehicle parts were purchased overseas, representing $71 billion of America's trade deficit and those numbers have continued to rise! However, Scorpion Performance has found that robotically controlled automation and high quality are the secret to offsetting the low-wage advantage of the East. As a result, Scorpion is manufacturing more and more orders that otherwise would have gone overseas, and more and more Americans are being hired to run the machinery to do it.
Through strategic marketing, fast distribution and great customer service from Scorpion Racing Products, in combination with technologically advanced manufacturing at Scorpion Performance, the company looks forward to continued growth and is proud to declare, "Made by Americans in the USA!"
