A new year brings the opportunity to reflect on the past 12 months, as well as embrace the year ahead.

With this being my first Autosphere column of 2024, I would like to take this opportunity to wish you and yours a momentous year ahead. May your 2024 be filled with good health and much happiness.

As is our custom, the dawn of a new year is always a timely opportunity to reflect on the year that just ended. For Team TRAC, there was much to celebrate in 2023 including:

• Returning to our Rubber Recycling Symposium after five long years. The conference took place in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and thanks to our generous sponsors and exhibitors along with our superb roster of international speakers on a variety tire and rubber recycling and sustainability topics, conference attendees told us that the event was outstanding!
• Celebrating nine outstanding companies and individuals for their dedication and commitment in the areas of Sustainability, Young Leader, Lifetime Achievement, and Leader of the Year through our Industry Leadership Awards program. Congratulations to all!
• Welcoming Tyromer as a new TRAC member company. This rubber recycling/devulcanization company utilizes a clean technology process that gives scrap tires and old rubber a new life, enabling a Circular Economy.
• Celebrating a very successful 2023 winter tire campaign which focused on educating Canadian drivers about the safety advantages of winter tires on frigid Canadian roads. The campaign has been our strongest since the inception of our Be Tire Smart consumer initiative back in 2002, with significant year-over-year increases in both audience reach and number of stories. The campaign also enjoyed success in Quebec, which is always a challenging media relations environment, given that winter tires are mandated there by law. You can view our 2023 winter tire messaging by reading our press release and 2023 Winter Tire Report.

Looking ahead, TRAC’s spring tire campaign will launch on May 6, and focuses on getting motorists ready for the upcoming summer driving season, including educating them about proper tire maintenance and tire inflation, and how that relates to vehicle safety and fuel economy.

Leadership awards

2024 will be the third year of our Industry Leadership Awards program; we will invite you shortly to nominate deserving individuals and companies in the areas of Leader of the Year; Lifetime Achievement; Young Leader; and Sustainability.

Additionally, we have two new companies in the process of joining our Association and we look forward to announcing them soon.

Our various TRAC Committees including Technical, Statistics, and End-of-Life Tire will meet regularly to advance their important work on behalf of our industry including meetings with federal government representatives from Environment & Climate Change Canada, Transport Canada, and Natural Resources Canada.

In collaboration with the USTMA (ustires.org), The Tire Industry Project (tireindustryproject.org), and other tire trade associations and organizations, we will continue to work together to advance solutions to the important issues of the day like 6PPD and tire and road wear particles.

There are plenty of interesting industry conferences on the docket for 2024 including:

• Tire Industry Association’s Off-the-Road Tire Conference, taking place on February 21-24 in Las Vegas, NV.
• Clemson University Global Tire Conference, taking place April 23-25 in Greenville, SC
• USTMA 2024 Tire Recycling Conference, taking place May 14-17 in Atlanta, GA, and
• Smithers’ Traction Summit, taking place August 13-14 in Charlotte, NC

I’m plannning to attend many of these events and hope to see you there!