Speedgroup Club Europe

Interview with Jennifer Faye, Vice President SFI

When, by whom and why was SFI founded?

JF: In racing’s early years, motorsports equipment was often pushed to its performance limits. Catastrophic parts failures would cause damage and sometimes injury to some of the participants involved. In response, a group of racing product manufacturers in 1963 formed an association known as the Speed Equipment Manufacturers Association, or SEMA. In those early days, SEMA's pioneers struggled with the development and implementation of various product specifications. Many "unknowns" they faced were the in areas of design criteria, testing and adoption of specifications. But their dedication to the industry and passion for racing won out. It wasn't long before the specifications were accepted and formed a part of sanctioning body rule books. The specs program became the responsibility of the SEMA Service Bureau, an organization who exclusively developed product specifications and testing programs.

As time went on, the need for a more sophisticated specifications program became apparent. A new organization, the SEMA Foundation, Inc., or SFI, was formed to replace the Service Bureau, and was incorporated in 1986 to organize and manage the expanded industry specs program. The SFI Foundation is completely independent from SEMA and now operates on its own as the organization which we all know today.

What does the operation look like today (what tasks does the SFI perform)?

JF: Currently, SFI maintains about 100 individual product Specs, has approximately 200 member sanctioning bodies worldwide, and we have about 500 manufacturers participating in our Specs program.

In addition to developing new standards, an important purpose of the SFI Program is to maintain ongoing quality checks of the products that are certified to its specifications. Racers are familiar with the fact that they have to get some of their products inspected and recertified on a regular basis to be able to continue using them. But did you know that those products must also be repeatedly laboratory tested to maintain the manufacturer certifications?
As the motorsports industry expanded, it became clear that other services were needed from SFI. In addition to requiring certified equipment to be used in their events, race sanctioning bodies saw the need for certification and training programs for their personnel. As a result, the SFI Technical Inspector Certification Program and the SFI Drag Race Incident Response Training Program were developed.

The tech inspector certification program was introduced in 1994 and was the first non-product type of program offered by SFI, with the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) being the first sanctioning body to use it. Today, SFI administers such a program for sixteen different sanctioning bodies worldwide. Each program is custom-designed for each organization.
The purpose of the tech inspector certification program is to demonstrate that the people who carry out tech inspection during an event operate at an expected competency level and also understand the rules of their particular race discipline. This is accomplished when applicants meet certain criteria such as having the required experience, attending a technical seminar and passing a written examination.

Another SFI program focused on personnel is the Incident Response Training Program. Unlike the tech inspector program, workers are not certified, however they are given achievement status after completing the training program. The Drag Race Incident Response Training Program began in 2000 at the request of the NHRA. They desired a basic training curriculum for track personnel, especially at the local level.