Ascend Gathers Driven Brands Collision Group in Denver

Downtown Denver's Sheraton hosted the Driven Brands Collision Group — Abra , CARSTAR , and Fix Auto USA — Sept. 30 – Oct. 3 for its annual conference. Franchisees, industry leaders, vendors, and corporate staff gathered for the three-day Ascend event for education, networking, fundraising, and celebration. 

Sterling Hawkins, author, investor, and entrepreneur, and Wednesday morning’s keynote speaker, shared how he’d built a $1 billion tech company with his father, only to lose it all when funding collapsed. It forced him to confront failure and rebuild his life. His “No Matter What System” is a five-step framework for embracing discomfort, taking ownership, and reframing problems into opportunities. He concluded his speech by noting that real progress, whether personal or organizational, demands courage, commitment, and the willingness to move through fear, because transformation only happens on the other side of discomfort.

Sean Carey, president of SCG Management Consulting and Thursday’s keynote speaker, predicted that slumping collision repair sales will shift course within the next year. Factors that have contributed to a decline will begin to reverse, he said, citing an aging car parc, which resulted in more total losses, and rising insurance prices causing drivers to carry higher deductibles or drop physical damage coverage altogether.

“And so the consumer backed away from making claims,” he said. “They backed away from having vehicles repaired. If they made a claim and got paid out, they kept the check — and put some tape on the vehicle.”

The supply of used vehicles will be the shortest the industry has ever seen, he predicted, and as their value increases, more will be trading them for new vehicles, which means the used vehicles will need to be prepped for sale.

“So the canary in the coal mine here is going to be dealer refurbish and fleet work — auction, fleet, detail refurbishment. You’ll start to see that coming back because people will change out of their vehicles. They’ve been in them too long, and they’ve got a little bit of a ding or a dent. They don’t want to be in it anymore — they want something new and shiny.”

At the same time, consumer confidence is increasing, if not by the end of the year, by the end of the first quarter of 2026, and toward the end of next year, “We’ll see a small return to normality” with total losses continuing to trend downward and consumer confidence increasing.

Dozens of vendors showcased products and services at the well-attended Wednesday afternoon vendor show. During the media roundtable, Driven Brands Collision Group President Sabrina Thring noted the group plans to continue growing up to 100 units per year across North America, with the majority of that growth being in the United States, where the group sees opportunities and markets to penetrate. About 60% of that will be independent conversions, with MSOs making up 10 to 15 percent.

“And then we have another strategic lever where we work with our insurance partners to define markets, where they have work and where we need to put stores,” she said. “We have probably three or four levers to our strategy.”

Damien Reyna, COO, Driven Brands Collision Group, said the conference gathering all collision brands coincides with the group’s operational philosophy of taking the best pieces each brand brought to the company through acquisition.

“We get asked a lot if there is a plan to ever just pull everybody under one banner and call it ‘Driven Brands Collision’ or something to that effect. And our answer remains the same: we won't do that because of the brand identities and the strong cultures that they've built. These are franchisees who have joined a banner, and they specifically chose that banner for one reason or another.”

Reyna added that the group’s performance helps build its insurance relationships, which allows it to build its OEM relationships and to be “good, supportive partners of each.”

Following an awards gala Thursday night, a live charity auction raised funds in support of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. In total, the Group raised more than $90,000 throughout the conference for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.