The exact page text, read by your browser's voice.
1962–2016 · company history (both forms); PRI 2012; IBJ 2006, 2024; Rubber News 2004
1962. After a conversation with Mohawk Rubber at a dealer conference, the first purpose-built Hoosier racing tire followed, made through an arrangement with the Mohawk Rubber Company of Akron, Ohio: Newton designed, engineered, compounded and oversaw production, commuting from northern Indiana to Akron. The arrangement lasted until Mohawk closed its doors in 1978. The recapping company, the long-form history adds, "had just two employees at first." (One carrier diverges on the first-new-tire date: the South Bend Tribune's 2004 feature, reached only as a ProQuest abstract, says Newton "built his first new tire in 1957." The abstract is a summary of a feature not read whole; the divergence stands registered at that strength, with the full Tribune text as settler — it is not adopted anywhere in this course.)
1979. The Newtons mortgaged their home and the company to build, in the long-form history's words, "the world's first and only factory solely devoted to the production of racing tires" — in Plymouth, Indiana, "just down the road from the corporate office in Lakeville" — which began production in 1979 with a handful of employees under the name R & J Mfg. Corp. (for Robert and Joyce). The "world's first and only" formulation is company-originated and prints as the company's. (A present-day retailer profile prints the plant as opened 1978, tying it to Mohawk's closing year; the dated company long-form and John DeSalle's 2015 account both give 1979 — the variance stands registered, and 1979 is the dated form this course carries.) No carrier reached dates the opening of the Lakeville headquarters site itself; that gap stands named in More Businesses.
1985–1995. In 1985 the Newtons financed a million-dollar mixing plant to produce rubber compounds strictly for racing tires, ending reliance on outside suppliers. In 1988 Hoosier entered NASCAR's Winston Cup Series and won nine times in its first year; in 1989 Darrell Waltrip drove Hoosier tires to victory in the Daytona 500 — the pair is corroborated independently by IBJ in 2006 and 2024. From 1989 the company also made forays into consumer tires, abandoned in 2002 in the face of cheap imports (IBJ 2006 alone carries the consumer line, at that strength). In 1991 came Hoosier's own radial race tire; in 1992 a second Plymouth plant, built solely for tubeless radials; in 1994 the return to Winston Cup (four wins with Geoff Bodine); in 1995, after failing to win a waiver of NASCAR's tire-count rule, the financial decision to exit the top two NASCAR series — and, the same year, selection as sole supplier for ARCA. In 1998 the manufacturing name changed: R & J Mfg. Corp. became Hoosier Tire & Rubber Corp., the long-form history noting the rename "removed the shroud of secrecy" around the manufacturing base. The name-chain as the record carries it: Hoosier Racing Tire (the trading name, 1957– ) → manufacturing as R & J Mfg. Corp. (1979) → Hoosier Tire & Rubber Corp. (1998) → the whole firm held as Hoosier Racing Tire Corp. of Lakeville → Continental (2016). The two corporate names run in parallel in the record — Hoosier Racing Tire Corp. on the Lakeville headquarters and the IDEM Plymouth permit; Hoosier Tire & Rubber Corp. as the Plymouth manufacturing name in directory listings, at directory strength.
2004–2006. By August 2004 the two sites stand separated by function in a trade carrier: Rubber News reports Hoosier expanding "engineering and manufacturing staffs at its plant in Plymouth, Ind., as well as service-related staff at its distribution and service center in Lakeville" — the earliest carrier reached that states the division expressly. IBJ's full feature of 11 December 2006 gives the scale as its founder would allow: "hundreds of thousands of racing-specific tires annually"; sales "grown 10-percent-plus year-over-year for the last decade"; only 5 percent of sales outside the United States; retail prices "$50 to $400 apiece"; an outside consultant's estimate of sales "deep into eight digits" — carried at exactly that strength. And the withheld figures are part of the record: Newton expressly declined to give IBJ the company's sales total, its employee count, and both sites' square footages. Those figures stand in More Businesses as a refusal of record, not an oversight.