Another oddball piece of trivia is while they are 'famous' in motorsports circles for sponsoring Chevys in the past, they are known by some fans as a FORD support base.

I've been a member of the North Texas Mustang Club (based out of the Dallas area) for years, and AER has supported the NTMC for most of those years., including donating the engine that is one of the prizes available to entrants in our annual Yellow Rose Classic indoor all-Ford show every year. In fact, Bill Wages (I forgot his exact business involvement with AER...maybe a founder or cofounder. His son Billy is identified on LinkedIn.com as AER's Purchasing Manager) has, or used to have, his personal collection of vehicles stored in a special room at AER...and they're all Fords or Ford-related vehicles (he had an Aston Martin DB7 or DB9 convertible years ago, when Ford owned Aston Martin--not sure if Mr. Wages still owns it).

AER owned or sponsored a Ford truck team in NASCAR"s Craftsman Truck Series in the early days of that series. They supposedly pulled the team a few years later, when they were asked to become a Chevy team...