The Howerton Story
It was said to be the greatest upset in the history of the prestigious Hoosier 100.
The 1974 running of the annual sprint car race held at the Indianapolis Fairgrounds, had, as usual, attracted the USA’s top drivers.
Ten of the starters in that year’s Indianapolis 500 were also in the field for the dirt track classic.
Legendary mechanic George Bignotti had entered two Grant King built cars, one for Wally Dallenbach, the other for an unknown, Jackie Howerton who had honed his craft winning over 100 supermodified races down in Oklahoma – a far cry from the USAC National Championships.
The four-cam Ford engine was the engine of choice for sprint cars at the time but Bignotti and Sonny Meyer, almost on a whim, built a 160 ci in turbocharged Offy for Jackie to use that September.
It was a power unit associated with the rear engined Indianapolis Speedway cars and certainly not with one-mile dirt tracks.
Photo: Jackie Howerton drifts to victory in the 1974 Hoosier 100 as Al Unser (1) and Mario Andretti (2), two of the USA’s all-time greats, tangle in their last minute effort to get past him.
Jackie had not long moved to Indiana, hoping, recalls one of his sons, Jeff, for a ride in the Indy 500.
Prior to the 1974 Hoosier 100, he had made just two starts in the big dirt cars, yet, to the surprise of a sell-out crowd and those watching on ABC television, he put his powerful, STP day-glow red car on the pole.
He then surged away once the green flag had dropped and, driving smoothly, was never headed.
Towards the end, with the Offy losing power, two other cars closed up on his, driven by no less than the Vel’s Parnelli Jones ‘super team’ of Al Unser and Mario Andretti.
Unser bumped wheels with Jackie on the final lap but the 31-year old ‘Okie’ was not to be denied.
The two Indy 500 winners almost tangled in their last minute efforts to beat him but all in vain; Jackie went home $11,000 better off and in sixth place in the USAC championship, despite his limited appearances.
Photo: The smile of a victor, Jackie Howerton
Jackie would never make it to the Indianapolis 500 as a driver but he would stay in the ‘Racing Capital of the World’, establishing himself as one of the most respected fabricators in the racecar business.
It was a start of a journey that would lead to a company, now run by sons Rick and Jeff, that would be become one of the leading manufacturers of exhausts to the world of motor sport.
To date, Howerton’s systems have been fitted to the winners of 15 Indianapolis 500s, 10 CART/IRL Championships, four NASCAR Championships and seven 24-Hours of Daytona.
Photo: Jackie Howerton was a great fabricator, this unreal hot rod being just one example of his creations.
Three years before his Hoosier 100 victory, Jackie had packed up a station wagon and moved his family up to Indianapolis where he secured a job fabricating for Indy, sprint and midget car builder, Grant King. The obsessed King was a hard taskmaster and, from there, Jackie soon moved on to build cars for Bignotti, arguably the most successful chief mechanic in Indy Car history.
‘That was where my dad learnt to hand form and gas weld aluminium,’ says Jeff. Jackie would later recall that much of what he learnt about forming aluminium came from Eddie Kuzma, who had earlier built two Indianapolis 500 winning cars as well as eight Hoosier 100 winners. Bignotti also allowed him to build a Championship Dirt car in his spare time and it was that, under the Pat Patrick Racing banner, which was entered for him to win the Hoosier 100.
The next step was to start his own fabrication business in his house garage in Speedway. Many of the smaller budget Indy car teams now came to his door, his speciality being tub repair although he also built a Pete Swingler designed car, ‘a work of art’ which inexperienced owner Gary Irvin failed to qualify for the 1982 Indy 500.
Irvin owned a construction company and paid for the car by building a new workshop for Jackie on what was then Rowena Street. It was the beginning of what was to become Gasoline Alley. ‘Now everyone wanted to be on the street,’ says Jeff. Howerton Products still operates out of number 360, one of those first few buildings on one of racing’s most famous roads.
Although tub repair was Jackie’s specialist activity, he would build anything on a racecar that was aluminium.
The advent of carbon fibre would almost put him out of business. Thankfully, there was still work for the out-dated cars of the American Racing Series (later Indy Lights) and his company, which now included sons Rick and Jeff, started moving over to building steel components.
Photo: Good neighbours. Howerton built the chassis for Riley & Scott’s highly successful sports racer
In the late 1980s, racecar manufacturer Riley & Scott moved into the adjacent workshop and Howerton began to build up complete chassis for the new operation.
The company flourished as Riley & Scott enjoyed great success in Trans-Am and then in endurance sportscar racing.
Mazda also wanted to enter the GTP series assisted by Howerton, which built two of its Lee Dykstra-designed cars.
In the early 1990s, Jackie Howerton began to take a step back from the business, which is today run by his sons. The brothers are true racers. The pair competed with Midgets and Sprint cars around that time, Rick winning the 1990 USAC Sprint Car Rookie of the Year title.
Jeff recalls he would find himself up against names that have now become household, drivers such as Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart.
Photo: Jeff Howerton found himself up against some of the best in Midget and Sprint car racing
Photo: Rick Howerton, here seen qualifying at Eldora Speedway, won the 1990 USAC Sprint Car Rookie of the Year award
Rick, a motocross rider during his teens, designed his own Flat Track motor bike, which was made, using Indy Car technology, at Howerton Products’ workshop, his team winning the 2016 AMA Grand National Flat Track Championship.
Signed up by Indian Motorcycles, he turned the Flat Track world on its head with the hitherto dominant Harley-Davidsons resigned to the role of underdogs.
Such had become his reputation that Harley would then go on to seek his services and, in late 2019, it was announced that he had become crew chief of its factory team.
Photo: In 1997, the IRL launched its own formula, which gave Howerton Products the opportunity to find new customers in Indy Car racing
When Riley & Scott moved from Indianapolis that left another hole in the family’s business.
‘This,’ recalls Jeff, ‘was when the header involvement spawned’. Initially, these were stainless steel systems for open wheel cars. However, the company now took its products, which were already being well received, to the PRI (Performance Racing Industry) trade show and the new side of the business began to take off.
‘We just had a 10 by 10 booth and took a bunch of collectors,’ remembers Jeff. ‘From that one show, we got a huge amount of interest.’
The customer base expanded into such as Trans-Am and IMSA sports cars. The company also moved into the, shortly to develop, world of NASCAR building systems for the front-running Joe Gibbs Racing.
The word spread quickly about the Howertons’ quality and attention to detail. At the same time a door opened with the launch of the Indy Racing League, which had become the new formula for the Indianapolis 500.
Photo: Howerton Products became a leading supplier to competitors in the Indianapolis 500
Unlike the Lolas and Reynards contesting the existing CART series, the Dallaras and G-Forces of the IRL did not come complete with exhaust systems.
Howerton stepped in to supply these, finding that there was so much business that it soon had to double its workforce and to invest around $¼ million in a mandrel bender and tooling package. ‘It was just an explosion of work.’
It was not long, however, before all the IRL teams wanted inconel alloy 625 systems such as were being used in CART and Formula 1.
‘One day,’ recalls Jeff, ‘I was at an IRL track and Mitch Davies, who loves new technology and who was running Chip Ganassi’s IRL team, shows up and says he has something he wanted to show me. On his car he had a set of inconel exhausts. (At the time Ganassi was running both CART and IRL teams). He let me hold a set and I could not believe how light it was.’
Jeff wanted to know who had built it, the answer being GoodFabs in the UK.
‘I told my brother that, if we did not get into inconel we would be out of business,’ remembers Jeff, who then conducted research into the material. The problem was that lead times at that stage could be up to two to three months, which in racing was just impossible.
Without giving away any secrets, Phil Levett, who had taken over the running of GoodFabs following the tragic death of founder Steve Good in a helicopter accident, pointed him in a few useful directions.
‘We had to figure out how we rolled the tubing. We had to make all the tooling and the machine to do this. So, now we no longer had to wait two to three months and pay $200 to $300 per foot. Within a very short time we were rolling, making all of our own tubing and filling everyone’s orders. We stopped the English invasion by offering customers inconel made in America!’
In many ways, the brothers were mirroring what GoodFabs was doing the other side of the Atlantic.
The next hurdle to be faced came in 2003 when a new rival began to point out how all of its exhaust systems were modelled on CAD. Rick had already done some work with 2D but now it was time for the Howertons to acquire Solidworks 3D modelling software.
‘This has shrunk the globe. A customer no longer had to stick a car on a trailer and then drive for two days to get to our shop for an exhaust system Now, they just had to send us the required information and we could then model and build exactly what they required. Many times we never see the system on the car,’ says Jeff.
Howerton’s exhausts systems now became known not only for excellent craftsmanship and performance but also for reliability and longevity. Technological changes in motor sport can happen abruptly, sometimes causing the demise of a company the expertise of which has become out-dated.
Long-term, successful suppliers to motor racing have to be able to move with the times, sometimes to even re-invent themselves. Howerton Products has been able to do this and - while one can trace an obvious link from Jackie Howerton’s tub repairs to the company’s high-tech inconel exhaust manufacture - has done so by being quick to respond to change.
Today, Howerton Products has over 50 bend dies and carries a wide variety of both 90 and 180-degree stainless mandrel bends. It can also take custom orders including forming and bending the super alloy inconel and for complete header fabrication.
The company supplies many top fabricators with not only all their bends, but custom merge collectors and flanges as well as tailpipe transitions, all tubing being made in house.
With its tube rolling capabilities, its plasma arc linear seam welder and 100 ton press, Howerton can manufacture any cone or transition no matter the inlet and exit diameters, wall thickness or material from titanium 6al4v and inconel 625 to the 300 series stainless, be it military grade 347, 321 or cost effective 304.
Throughout the decades, Howerton Products has maintained good relations with GoodFabs. Now that the two companies have teamed up in a joint venture, it will enable Howerton to offer its own exhaust heat shield insulation.
Until recently, in order to be able to offer a complete package, the company has tended to despatch exhaust systems to GoodFabs in the UK to be clad. Given that GoodFabs’ Buckinghamshire, England base is considerably nearer to Silverstone than it is to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, this has not be ideal.
Now, however, GoodFabs is up-skilling Howerton, transferring knowledge that will enable it to carry out heat shielding itself and sharing its accreditation.
Investment has been made in an oven and a cutting bench and material initially sent from GoodFabs to assist the learning process. With the heat shield insulation being manufactured in Indianapolis, lead times to US racecar teams will be dramatically cut while an increase in the customer base is confidently predicted.
‘We believe that the venture will certainly rival anyone else’s work,’ states Jeff.
Photo: In 2017, Rick Howerton ran Indian Motorcycle’s AMA Pro flat track factory team
This history of Howerton Race Products was researched and written by Ian Wagstaff, a well-known freelance journalist specialising in motorsport.
A member of the Guild of Motoring Writers, Ian Wagstaff has written for a many magazines in both Europe and the USA including Racecar Engineering, Race Engine Technology, Performance Racing Industry, Autosport, Motor Sport and ATZautotechnology,
He has twice been awarded the Mercedes Benz Montagu of Beaulieu Trophy, in 2006 for his book 'The British at Le Mans' and in 2012 for his biography of race mechanic Tony Robinson. He was also given the Guild's Pierre Dreyfus Award in 1986.
His other works include 'The British at Indianapolis', which won the 2010 Association of American Auto Writers and Broadcasters Book of the Year, as well as volumes on such as the Porsche 917, Maserati 250F and Lotus 18, 49 and 72 for Haynes and Porter Press.