When used parts sales migrated to the internet and acquired a somewhat dubious reputation, the Dietrich family reinvented their used parts warehouse as a new-parts retailer—while continuing to offer selected testing and rebuilding services.
Almost 30 years ago, racer Dan Dietrich founded Racers Used Parts Warehouse in Aspers, Pennsylvania, to sell safe and reliable used parts to grassroots sprint car teams. “In 1996, when my dad started the business, it was all used,” recalled Billy Dietrich who, with his younger brother Danny, now runs the business for their father. “Since the evolution of the smartphone and the internet, the used part business took a downturn. Everybody’s got their own source, and they sell their used parts themselves. For the last 10 years, maybe more, you could see the handwriting on the wall. They didn’t need us anymore. So we had to shift gears. Now I would say 95% of our sales, or even higher, are new parts.”
In fact, the renamed Racers New and Used Parts Warehouse sells every part that goes into a sprint car, including new Maxim chassis. “You could come into our shop,” said Billy, “and leave with enough parts to put a car together.”
SPECIALIZING IN SPRINT CARS
One thing that hasn’t changed is the family’s laser focus on sprint cars. “It’s strictly sprint cars,” said Billy. “That’s all we know. It’s always been that way.”
Dan Dietrich campaigned sprint cars from 1980 until 1996, when a three-car tangle sent his No. 39 over the Turn Three fence at Lincoln Speedway. During the long recovery that followed, Dan “stepped away from racing full time,” said Billy, “and bought out the team he’d been driving for.” He began selling off the team’s assets, and “that’s when he realized that there was a need for used parts.”
At first, Dan operated out of the garage attached to his house. He advertised in Area Auto Racing News and National Speed Sport News, and, later, on the HoseHead’s website. “We did a lot of traveling to buy parts,” said Billy, “to Ohio, Indiana, Michigan.” They traveled up to Minnesota and down to Florida, while racers came to Aspers to sell their parts to them. The business moved out of the garage and into a new two-story building on the same property, with a workshop downstairs and a sales room on the upper floor. Later, when the Dietrichs added a second building dedicated to service work, the lower floor of the first building became their warehouse.
Billy started racing around the same time Dan retired, and brother Danny followed a few years later. Both brothers now pilot 410 winged sprints. While Billy described his racing activity as “pretty local,” Danny’s more ambitious program takes him as far south as Florida and as far west as Knoxville. He won the 410 points championship at Lincoln in 2012, and the HoseHead’s Central PA points championship in 2017 and 2024.
TRUST AND TRANSITION
“We are not just selling you a part,” said Billy. “That part is in our race car. So you are also getting any knowledge we can share with you. We know if a part is right or wrong. When we had the used parts business, every part that went upstairs for sale was thoroughly gone through and guaranteed. You knew what you were buying because we threw the junk away. Even simple things like a wheel: It’s supposed to be round, and it could easily not be round anymore. Or a radius rod, making sure it’s straight and doesn’t have a crack in it.” That thinking went all the way to complete engines, “where we’d bench test it, leak it down, run the valves, change the oil, maybe even pull the pan and check the bearings. We’ve done it all.”
Sadly, many of the parts sold through online marketplaces are not as thoroughly vetted. People have bad experiences, and “a lot of people lost trust in buying used parts from other people. If you can’t trust what you are buying used, if you are not sure what you are getting—and you’re paying, say, 70% of the price of a new part—that 30% savings isn’t really a value. So people said, ‘Well, I’m just going to buy new parts, because the used-parts market isn’t what it was.’”
Fortunately, said Billy, “a couple of things” eased their transition from selling used parts to new. “Around the time things started to change, Danny graduated high school and was working in the business full-time, and he just kind of stepped into the role” of developing a new-parts inventory. Sometimes that meant finding new suppliers and qualifying to become a dealer, “but that wasn’t hard for us. We were established. We already had the clients. And now we have a warehouse full of new parts.”
REAREND REBUILDS AND STEERING TESTS
As noted earlier, Racers New and Used Parts Warehouse stocks every part needed to build a sprint car. Billy and Danny will even custom-assemble a complete roller, using a Maxim chassis and the buyer’s choice of components. At one time they could have supplied an engine, too, but they have backed away from engine building as new parts sales have grown.
Engine building was never a large part of their business, and the need to send parts out for machining had limited profits. “My dad taught me how to build engines,” said Billy. “We built our own for a number of years, and we built engines for other guys here and there, [but] the busier we got selling new parts to walk-in customers, the more it affected our time to build engines. You have to have dedicated hours to do that. You have to be able to lock the doors and not be interrupted. So while I would still enjoy doing it, it’s been phased out.”
That said, the brothers still offer engine service and repair. Racers “who can’t get their motors running right, they can bring their car and motor to the shop, and we’ll work on it.”
Additionally, Billy continues to rebuild rearends, a long-time Dietrich specialty. The work is seasonal, and volume can vary widely year-to-year. The procedure, however, is pretty standard, and a “normal rebuild” costs about 10% of the price of a new unit.
“We clean and inspect,” said Billy, “and replace the seals, gaskets, and O-rings.” Of course, some units require more attention. Gears and bearings are replaced if necessary; most often the ring and pinion are the first to wear out. And if the case or axles have been bent in a crash, then “it’s pretty straightforward. You can’t fix it. It’s junk.”
The Dietrichs offer other services as well. “We dyno shocks and torsion bars. We have the crimp machine for BMRS lines, so we can make up hoses. And we test steering boxes. We don’t rebuild them inhouse, but we have someone who does that for us.”
“At the end of last season, I took my steering boxes up there and had them put on their tester, to make sure everything checked out,” said Randy Oberlander, owner of Randy Wade 1x Racing in Thomasville, Pennsylvania. “I had them check a couple of rears, too, and we did find one that had an issue.” (Oberlander elected to replace, rather than rebuild it.)
“And when we were having brake issues, Danny got us on a brake program through Wilwood, and that’s what we’ve used ever since,”
Oberlander had searched for suppliers after he bought the team nine years ago, but “ease and location mattered.” With the Dietrichs “being so close and so helpful,” they have become his “primary supply source. I buy my tires, I buy my fluids—95% of what it takes to run a 410 team, I probably get through them.”
Sometimes, after a “mishap” at the track, Oberlander will “go down the next morning and ask if they have a part in stock, or do I have to start chasing it somewhere else. Normally they have it, very few times they don’t. If they don’t, it’s a hard part to keep in stock, and you’re not going to find it anywhere else. I’m usually there once a week during the race season. Whether or not I’m buying parts, I pop in and chat. It doesn’t matter if it’s Danny or Billy, and I talk to Dan quite a bit—and I learn things.”
PRESENCE AS PROMOTION
Racers and fans can also learn from Billy’s YouTube channel. Produced by Billy’s wife Heather, The Billy Dietrich Channel (youtube.com/@billydietrich) reaches 12,000 subscribers, with “tech tips, shop tours, things to look for, and broken or failed parts that a customer brought in,” said Billy. Recent releases have covered reading a shock dyno sheet, and the how’s and why’s of push-starting.
Another way that Billy and Danny have made the internet work for them is through social media. “Our Facebook page [facebook.com/RUPWDietrichs/] probably has more reach than anything,” said Billy. “I know I go to Facebook more than I go to websites anymore. We post as frequently as we can, about new parts, technical information,” anything that “people will find interesting, or maybe didn’t know.”
It’s all about “staying in front of people,” said Billy, although he believes the best way he and Danny do that is by racing. “All the central Pennsylvania tracks—Williams Grove, Lincoln, Port Royal, BAPS, Selinsgrove, Clinton County—run 410s, and we’re there, either me or Danny or both of us. That helps us a lot, to be in front of the racers. People walk up and talk to us, and that’s a big part of our ability to get people in the door.”
The Dietrichs don’t sell parts trackside. “We’re there as competitors. But we watch our customers race, and we see what’s going on. We see who’s having trouble, and who’s having a good night or a bad night.”
They also provide help when they can. “If we have a mishap,” said Oberlander, “where we knock out an axle, or something like that, Danny will be the first one to jump in and get his hands dirty. Billy, too.”
“I’ve seen Billy take the spare radiator he had in his trailer,” added Chris Frank, of Wellsville, Pennsylvania, “and give it to somebody else at the race track, to try to get them through the night.”
Frank first raced a kart in 1997 and bought a “race-ready” 358 sprint car in 2014. Recently he’s run a few 410 events and, when we spoke in February, he was planning to step up to 410s full-time in 2025. Like Oberlander, he appreciates the Dietrich’s convenient location, “being that it’s close to Williams Grove and Lincoln, where the majority of our racing is.
“When I started,” Frank added, “having the used [parts available] was nice, so you didn’t have to buy brand-new.” On the other hand, “you can get anything you want on the internet, but Billy and Danny, they’ve lived it their whole lives. And for someone like me who lacks that experience—you can learn the hard way, or go in there and say, ‘This is what I am trying to do, and this is what I have,’ and they’ll say, ‘Well, it’s not working because of X, Y, or Z.’ You’re not just getting parts and equipment. You’re getting experience.”
In fact, Frank recalled a time when he didn’t listen and did learn the hard way. The team dominating local 358 racing ran 8639 chassis, so, naturally, Frank wanted one for himself. But Billy and Danny had doubts. “They said, ‘We don’t think that’s going to be a good fit for you.’ And they were right. I ran it not even a full season and ended up selling it. I went back to a used 8740, and that was much better almost immediately.
“What works for one guy may not work for you,” Frank pointed out. “The internet is never going to say, ‘I don’t think this is a good idea.’ They are going to take your money and run. But Billy and Danny will ask you, ‘Why do you need that?’ They don’t want to see you fighting an uphill battle because you are trying to reinvent the wheel or do something goofy. There are fewer places like this all the time, who are staying in the industry, instead of getting out and letting the internet have it.”
Sure, you can still save a few dollars buying used parts online. But you can’t put a price on decades of experience, or on Dan, Billy, and Danny’s willingness to share it.
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