ATLANTA – Manheim has found a way to combine technology with live auction bidding to make it possible for more dealers to `attend' the company's auto auctions and thereby driving up the price of vehicles sold – Manheim Simulcast. Jon Schrock, national accounts director for Manheim, the largest and highest volume whole auto auction company, describes Simulcast as `nanosecond technology.' "By going on the Manheim site at www.manheimauctions.com and clicking on to simulcast, dealers can get a list of the auction lanes and actually see the cars in them because there are two plasma screens in every lane. They can also get condition report announcements on a vehicle and enhanced Pre-Sale Listing information and bid on any vehicle they want by placing a proxy bid. It's just like the dealer was on-site at the auction," he says. Dealers are also able to get a buyer's summary of vehicles purchased in a particular lane and receive detailed records of vehicles purchased. By participating in an auto auction via Simulcast, dealers can participate in up to four lanes of bidding action simultaneously. So dealers can watch four auctions occurring in any one of the more than 400 Manheim lanes that has Simulcast. In 2003, nearly 44,000 vehicles of the nearly 985,000 units offered over Simulcast sold to online buyers. The online bidder was the second-highest bidder in 23,609 transactions last year.Based on the current growth rate which is about 20% each month, the company expects to sell 339,000 vehicles by Simulcast by the end of the year. [email protected]