Hoosier Racing Tire Corporation

Congratulations on anchoring this show for another year and to everyone that's behind the scenes that has made this show what it is.

And then, of course, our friends at Continental Tires that actually make it all possible.

So thank you guys for watching.

Good luck.

Welcome to a podcast Q&A special.

We're joined today by Steve Howitt of Continental Tyre and Dick Meadon's here as well.

So yeah, lots of questions about tyres coming your way, Steve.

First one is, how did you get into the business and how long have you been in it?

Glad to have you at our headquarters in Akron, Ohio today.

So Brian, Walk us through your professional career and how you ended up in your current role as Continental Tire head of marketing.

I've always been a car guy.

Ever since before I even had my first car, they've always been interesting to me.

i always enjoyed the like i enjoyed the work i enjoyed turning this having an impact on a sport that i loved but for me i was gone 90 something days a year i've got you know two young kids at home my wife were in florida we know nobody besides the friends that we've met and just decided that wasn't the right thing for me but through that is where i got to know continental so continental was the tire sponsor of Grand Am and IMSA at the time.

And Travis Roffler was a friend of mine through, you know, through working on the partnership side.

And kind of, I always told myself, you know, I respected what Travis had done for Continental from, you know, the many years that he was there.

and said, hey, if I can go to Continental, it's a really cool opportunity from a brand standpoint.

So, and, yeah, I'm trying to find the balance because obviously maybe I am able to make my contribution to the retention of a, of, of a job in the, in, in the value chain.

And I know that, uh, Bridgestone, Firestone, Continental, General Tire, Goodyear, uh, Sumitomo, um, Dunlop is, is made in South Africa.

Is that correct? And by a purchase there, I'm keeping a job in place in the, in the value chain.

Can you confirm that?

That's right.

Yeah, almost, uh, a perfect example, almost every manufacturer uses Continental Teves, uh, equipment for their ABS, which also runs the, uh, traction control and the stability control.

All of that works off the ABS software.

But Continental, uh, created this, this system 30 years ago or more.

Right, right.

Um, and it's, it, it works beautifully, so that's, that's probably in 90% of all vehicles.

... yeah, exactly.

You know, the, it seems like over the last few years, Continental, Schwalbe, and Vittoria, maybe a handful of others like Panaracer, um, maybe Maxxis in there too, have dominated gravel tires.

That's what, you know, most people have been racing on, that's what most brands have been stocking.

And so I think it's cool that these brands that they're not coming out of nowhere.