The 35-year-ld electrical engineer from Princeton, Texas, who went to school at Oklahoma State, compared it to another sport which takes a ton of focus.

“It could’ve only gotten one win light better,” Howard said. “Racing is a lot like golf. It’s not how, it’s how many. Guess I needed that one mulligan.”

Howard is no stranger to Holly Springs Motorsports, the Mississippi track which has hosted the World Finals the last three years. After qualifying for the finals as the IHRA Summit SuperSeries track points champion at Xtreme Raceway Park and also winning the IHRA Division 4 (Renegades) Summit Team Finals, he was ready to travel two states East.

“It’s my fifth or sixth time to be here and it’s always a great trip,” Howard said. “This facility reminds me a lot of some of the tracks we race at back home. The track works good, the people are friendly and the track crew works their tails off.”

Howard works his off as well. His car is certainly an eye-catcher. It’s a 1976 Pontiac Trans-Am, one of 319 made with Smokey and the Bandit look. 

“It has the original 455, 4-speed. I still have the original block and transmission, all the interior,” he said. “I could make it a show car if I wanted to, but that’s boring. This is a lot more fun to be out here with all these people, win or lose. It’s a blessing to do this.”

After heading Eastbound and down, it delivered for him big time at the IHRA Summit SuperSeries World Finals.

He had a 6.403-second run at 109.17 on a 6.40 dial-in with a .023 to edge the always tough Charlie Lockhart from Gleason Raceway Park in the Race of Champions final. He used an advantage at the tree to win to beat Dustin Sullivan in the main event semifinal.

Justin Minton from Beacon Dragway got the win over Howard in the final. Howard still had a very productive weekend including a $7,000 runner-up prize from Summit Racing Equipment. He explained it was about much more than that, as the IHRA racing community means so much to him.

“I love the people. This is my family,” he said. “I don’t have a real big family outside of my parents, but we meet new people everywhere we go. These people mean a lot to me. The gentleman I raced in the final, I’d never talked to him other than being in the lanes beside him a couple of times. What a great guy he was and he deserved it as much as anyone.”