The last weekend of July, Peterson co-sponsored the NHRA Top Fuel Dragster of Hot Rod Fuller for the second year in a row. Employee volunteers from Peterson Holding, Peterson Power and Peterson Tractor pulled together a fabulous corporate “win” for the weekend.

“This was a very big deal,” states Eric Martin (PPS President) whose crew put a Caterpillar C32 generator on display at the midway. Most people who walked by marveled at the enormous pistons and bearings that were set out on a table to draw in the crowd. “Millions of people saw this race on TV. For a company our size to get that kind of exposure is huge.” And, to top it off, “... most of these guys are gear-heads”.

Peterson got loads of exposure during the Powerade Series event from July 25-27, at Sonoma's Infineon Raceway. “This is a joint effort between Caterpillar and its dealers as a technician recruitment opportunity. Every time Rod went to the line, people saw our name and heard a plug about Peterson and the hiring opportunities we offer,” states Rich Hasper,  Peterson's HR Director who helped spearhead the event along with Tom Bagwell, PPS Marketing Mgr. “Our purpose is to get our name out in front of as many people as possible as a potential hiring company.”

Caterpillar committed to sponsoring Hot Rod Fuller’s David Powers Motorsports car last year, along with any of its local dealers who cared to participate. And Peterson jumped at the chance. People seemed thrilled to have the local Caterpillar dealer involved, giving us a great branding opportunity for both our company and our products.

At this year's event over 150 people indicated interest in a possible future career with Peterson; we had 50 on-the-spot interviews yielding five hot leads for technicians, another two-dozen possibilities for our ThinkBIG apprenticeship program, and 75 requests for a sales/rental or service contact.  All in all, a pretty productive weekend.

An interesting side development was the pending sale of a CAT 414 skiploader to replace the tired, worn-out Ford backhoe the NHRA uses to groom the tracks between rounds. Since the machine travels the country with the NHRA team, it poses yet another opportunity to display the Caterpillar name at every NHRA event whether it's in Sonoma, California or Gainesville, Florida.

Peterson is pleased to co-sponsor Hot Rod Fuller and the David Powers Motorsports team and looks forward to doing it again next year.

Race Details for July 25-27, 2008

Peterson's ThinkBIG apprenticeship program

www.cat.com/dealercareers

www.davidpowersmotorsports.com