Redmond might not be known as a stock car racing hub, but two local businesses are important names in motorsports.

Both Smith Brothers Pushrods and Fuel Safe Systems provide products to NASCAR racing teams. Their facilities, both of which feature checkered flags, were part of the Oct. 7 Made in Redmond Tour.

The tour, sponsored by Redmond Economic Development Inc., has celebrated National Manufacturing Day the last four years by letting community leaders know about local industrial businesses, many of which deal primarily with out-of-town customers.

“These folks markets aren’t here,” REDI Senior Manager Jon Stark told the 63 attendees after the tour. “They’re not on our Main Street. They’re on somebody else’s Main Street.”

That was evident with Smith Brothers, which provides parts to half of NASCAR’s teams, including Richard Childress Racing. The break room at its shop was lined with posters of drivers including Matt Kenseth, Bill Elliott and Jeff Burton.

Smith Brothers started in 1953 in California, moved to Bend in 1996 and came in 2013 to Redmond, where it takes up 33,000 square feet of a 47,000-square-foot building near Redmond Municipal Airport.

The airport was one of the big selling points for Redmond, company President Scott Mills said. Smith Brothers, which has 25 employees, ships 90 percent of its orders within one business day, something its competitors charge extra for.

“We take pride in our fast turnaround and our ability to ship out quickly,” he said.

The shop produces about 1,000 pushrods a day, with most of them going out of state. Only three of Smith Brothers’ top 10 customers are on the West Coast, while one is in Australia.

NASCAR teams have a high demand for pushrods, Mills said. They typically change out the pushrods after a couple races, though they probably could last longer, Mills said.

“They don’t want to lose a race because they didn’t spend a couple hundred dollars on pushrods,” he said.

While pushrod engines have fallen out of favor for passenger cars, Smith Brothers does make nonracing products for use in sporting goods and aerospace.

Fuel Safe Systems is making more of a conscious effort to get into products outside of its racing fuel cells. Its building on NE Kingwood Avenue features a small museum of the NASCAR, sprint car and Indy car vehicles it provides fuel cells for.

The company primarily makes safety bladders for fuel that protect race cars and drivers in a crash. They are approved by the major domestic and international sanctioning racing bodies.

“Our product is not one that is highly visible on the car,” said Fuel Safe President Bill Hare. “But they are a critical component of the safety net.”

But company officials make clear they are getting involved with areas outside racing. Visitors can also see some of the other products Fuel Safe makes, like a bladder used to airlift fuel to remote sites like mines

Fuel Safe also started in California and moved to separate locations in Bend and Redmond in 2000. It consolidated operations eight years ago into its new 92,000-square-foot Redmond building, where 40 people work.

The Great Recession hit shortly after the new building opened, hitting motorsports hard. That caused a problem for the company that had 95 percent of its business in racing five years ago.

Since then, Fuel Safe has diversified its clients, with 25 percent of customers now industrial companies like Boeing and Raytheon, Hare said. And it looks to continue to grow the industrial business.

“I’d really like to see us at a minimum of a 50-50 mix of our revenue stream,” he said.

Even as they move into other fields, people like seeing national sports have a place in Redmond.

“It’s nice to watch a NASCAR race and say Redmond had a part in that,” said REDI board member Barb Myers.

This year’s tour also visited Central Composites, which specializes in making parts for wheelchairs and other items, and RDD, a small aircraft builder.

Marcus Falhgren started Central Composite when he was 23 in 2010, after being laid off from Epic Aircraft in Bend. He has grown the shop from a single rented service bay to an entire building near the Deschutes County Fairgrounds. The company has seven full-time employees, plus a part-time worker.

Though a small company, Central Composite has a global market. Falhgren said its largest customers are in Europe, as well as in Texas and Washington state.

Central Composite hasn’t had to advertise to be successful, Falhgren said.

“We don’t have to go out and find a business,” he said. “A lot of times, businesses will come to us.”

The Made in Redmond tour, which was broken into two groups, also stopped at RDD, a business located just outside Redmond airport. The company’s initials stand for Research Design Develop, which are just some of the things it does with small certified and experimental aircraft.

The company employs 20 people, who help build experimental planes and also convert planes into the popular LX7 model. It also has a flight simulator that is used both by pilots in training or people who want to rent it out for $80 an hour for events like birthday parties.

“We like to say there is not another place like this in the world, where you can come and have this variety of operations in the same building,” partner David McRae said.

RDD is rare because it operates outside the airport and uses an exterior gate to get its planes into RDM, a process owners say the Transportation Security Administration is not fond of.

Redmond City Manager Keith Witcosky encouraged tourgoers to ask businesses about the potential impacts if Measure 97 passes. The Nov. 8 ballot initiative would place a 2.5 percent tax on corporate gross sales of more than $25 million per year. The money is designed to go toward education, healthcare and senior services.

Though none of the businesses on the Made in Redmond tour exceed $25 million in sales, some said it could impact the costs of buying goods from larger companies. Others said it might impact them as they grow.

“Hopefully, it’s going to be a real pain in the butt in a few years,” joked Jason McGee, Fuel Safe’s sales and marketing director.

— Reporter: 541-548-2186, gfolsom@redmondspokesman.com