Big-Name Distributor Caught Stealing Small Shop’s Part Design and Selling It on Summit (UPDATED)

Jay Robarge designs and builds upgraded Ford transmission parts, mostly for drag racing, under the Broader Performance name. Since Robarge only sells directly to customers, leaving out middle-man distributors, you can imagine his surprise when someone contacted him about a faulty valve body they bought from Summit Racing. Robarge doesn't sell to Summit Racing, so he immediately knew something was awry. As he investigated further, he learned that another company was ripping off his designs and selling them through one of the automotive industry's largest retailers.

On April 11, Robarge took to YouTube with two different valve bodies in hand: his own and one that he bought from Summit. The latter came in a box with Speedmaster branding, but inside, Robarge found a valve body with «Broader Performance» machined into its face. He concluded that Speedmaster machined a valve body identical to his own but either couldn't be bothered to remove the engraving or decided to use that branding for its gain.

Speedmaster is a large, international company. It maintains a presence at the annual SEMA show in Las Vegas and even partners with the NHRA. The company's CEO Jason Kencevski claims in a YouTube video that his father in Australia founded the business in 1979 and has since sold 25,000 parts. However, he also says «The catch is, we're not sourcing 25,000 parts. We're actually designing, manufacturing, testing 25,000 parts.» Robarge's video suggests otherwise.

How did Robarge know that Speedmaster was machining its own version of his design? The tooling marks on the face of the valve bodies were different, proving that Speedmaster's didn't come from his shop. It's unclear how and why this happened, though. It's possible that Speedmaster bought one of his products, 3D-scanned it, copied it, and sold it under its own brand rather than licensing the design or developing its own. When reached for comment by The Drive, Speedmaster itself said it isn't sure how this happened, promising that an active investigation is underway.

Summit Racing commented on Robarge's first video: «We take the issue of counterfeit and knock-off parts very seriously and were unaware of your example