The Donald Trump administration announced a 20% tariff on all imports from China this month. There were questions about how this would impact the motorsports industry, and the answer has come first from Lionel Racing, NASCAR’s die-cast collectible car licensee. The company has already begun adding a surcharge on products to its customers.
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It sent out messages to its wholesale partners indicating that there would be a 10% surcharge on prices. On Thursday, it began applying the charge to all purchases made on lionelracing.com for retail customers. For instance, the retail price of a 1/24 standard Race Win die-cast is expected to go from $85 to $99.95.
Howard Hitchcock, the company’s CEO, revealed that they will now have to pay an overall tariff of 54% for all imported die-casts. Hitchcock also mentioned to the Sports Business Journal that additional price adjustments can be expected in the coming days. China is the largest toy hub in the world and is where Lionel Racing manufactures its products.
After the additional U.S. tariffs announced this week on imports from China, @Lionel_Racing has started informing wholesale customers like @NASCAR teams of additional price increases.
➡️ For 1/24 scale standard Race Win diecast, suggested retail price will go from $85 to $99.95. pic.twitter.com/nTj0xkieP3
— Adam Stern (@A_S12) April 5, 2025
All this confusion has led fans to question why the die-casts and other such materials are being manufactured outside the United States. One fan lamented on X, “Genuinely curious to know why they don’t bring manufacturing back to the US. Shit was better when it was made here.”
Another said, “Sounds like a good time to shift production to the US.” It is not just the cost of die-casts that will increase. Some of the standardized parts in the NASCAR Next Gen car are made outside the country. The costs of bringing these to the race shops are expected to increase as well. This presents a whole new problem for team owners.
One comment asked, “How about making them in the USA?” And another declared, “Make them in America.” Notably, President Trump imposed tariffs on Chinese imports in his first term as well. However, toys were exempt at the time. Hitchcock made it clear in his statement that businesses were severely impacted because of the new policy.
He said, “This significant change to our cost basis, the rising price of materials and labor, and changing consumer behavior in the retail space make operating a successful business challenging. The tariff surcharge we recently announced for products that arrived in our warehouse on and after March 7 is in line with how other toy manufacturers are addressing the 20% hit to their business.”
NASCAR President Steve Phelps had mentioned on the recent episode of the Hauler Talk podcast that the financial implications of the new tariffs would be closely monitored. It will be interesting to see how the promotion and teams tackle the added burden going fo
