
A childhood friendship, two computers and a stubborn promise to customers turned a Connecticut parts counter into a $200 million online business. The interesting part is not the speed. It is what Scott Drozd refused to discard along the way.

Nick Bauer put a few Volvo oil filters on eBay and discovered that an old parts counter could travel. What followed was a lesson in catalogs, recalls, race cars and the expensive art of keeping a promise.