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It’s a race car.
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That’s right, the first time
16-year-old Cole Howland grabbed the steering wheel — for real — it belonged to a high-powered stock car. And it wasn’t at the La Crosse Fairgrounds Speedway, or Wisconsin Dells, or Slinger. It was at New Smyrna Beach, Fla., at a driving school.
No, this wasn’t your typical behind-the-wheel lesson for a soon-to-be motorist. This was an intense, two-day, let’s see-what-you-have type of school. Howland loved it. So did his father, Jeff.
“When he went to that race school in Florida and ran for two straight days there, he was 14. Right there, I had a sense what he could do,” Jeff Howland said. “He went from a 10 horsepower, 300-pound
go-kart to a 3,000-pound,
450-horsepower race car and did very well. From the first day to the second day, the instructor asked what I had fed him for breakfast.”
It was just one of many indications of Cole’s quick-study ability once behind the wheel of a race car.
“I wasn’t scared. I was a little nervous,” Cole said. “It’s pretty cool to drive a race car before you have your license. The first day I had five feet from the right side of my race car to the (outside track) wall. The next day it was a foot or less.”
Cole, currently a sophomore at Logan High School, didn’t stop driving after the Florida experience. Seven years of
go-kart racing on a local, regional and national scale had given him a racing appetite for much more. The stint in a stock car only reinforced the drive in him to get behind the wheel of a stock car.
There was a problem, however. No it wasn’t his grades — Cole has a 3.4 GPA and he and his father have an agreement that if the grades drop, the racing stops. It was his age.
“You have to be 16 to race at La Crosse (Fairgrounds Speedway),” Jeff Howland said. “We were talking to Tom McClintock, who was racing trucks at the time. You could race in that series (USST, or United States Super Truck) at 15. Tom found a truck for us and we went racing.”
Cole was excited, but he knew his limits, too. In fact, at his first feature race he was slated to start on the pole. It’s great to be out front, but it’s a high-pressure spot as the entire field is behind you. You screw up, and the field piles into you. No one leaves happy.
Cole was well aware of this, and asked to be moved to the rear of the field. An unselfish move from a kid who knew he wasn’t ready.
“I had some pre-race jitters, but it was a better move to start from the rear,” Cole said. “Once you get out there on the track all your nerves go away.”
Cole wasn’t an instant success in the USST Series in 2007. It’s a competitive series, one in which McClintock won the season championship in 2006. McClintock served as a racing coach, so-to-speak, for Cole, and also helped Jeff in the pits. Setting up the chassis on a race truck was all new to Jeff.
“Without Tom’s help, it’s unlikely we would have gotten too far. You can’t learn all of this on your own. You need people to help you out, and Tom has helped us a ton.”
Still, McClintock nor Jeff Howland could drive for Cole. That was up to him. After consistently getting lapped in the first four races of the 2007 season, Cole was running in second place in a race at Shakopee, Minn. For 10 laps, he was tailing the leader. Then in what is commonly called a “racing incident,” he was spun out.
No runner-up finish. No breakthrough race. Or was it?
“The race after that was in Madison. From the Madison race to the end of the season, I didn’t get lapped,” Cole said.
Cole went on to finish eighth overall in points out of 43 drivers to earn points in the USST, and his first win came in front of his hometown crowd as he won a heat race last year at the Oktoberfest Race Weekend (15-year-olds can race at Oktoberfest). He finished second in the rookie of the year standings, which was quite a feat after being the kid who spent the first four races as lap traffic.
“It’s all about getting the respect, or I should say, earning the respect of the other drivers,” Jeff Howland said. “I think he did that.”
Now, it’s time to take another step up the ladder, Cole said. He was scheduled to open the 2008 USST schedule last weekend at the Dells Raceway Park in Wisconsin Dells, Wis., but that event was rained out. Today, weather permitting, he’ll open his second full season of truck racing at the Iowa Speedway in Newton, Iowa.
“I’m ready. I’m always thinking about racing,” Cole said.
The track at Newton is a three-quarter mile track, and the trucks will reach speeds of 140 mph, Jeff Howland said.
“He’s ready for the speed. I’m his spotter, too, and I can tell (over the radio) how he’s doing,” Jeff said. “With all of the safety equipment in these trucks, he’ll be safe. I wouldn’t let him out there if he wasn’t ready, and I know he would tell me if he wasn’t ready.”
Cole is in a top-notch truck this season, too, as Jeff Howland bought McClintock’s truck — the one he won the championship with. With a new truck, some valuable experience, and a passion for racing, this father-son team is ready to go. But where will they go?
After this year in the USST Series, Jeff said they may purchase a Late Model car and race at the La Crosse Fairgrounds Speedway for a year or two, then who knows?
“I really want to keep racing and keep moving up. I understand this isn’t going to happen overnight,” Cole said. “I have to keep proving myself every step of the way.”
And Jeff, at this point, has to keep footing most of the bills every step of the way.
“I’m not sure where this is going to go,” said Jeff Howland, who is a construction superintendent for a company which installs and repairs boiler units at power plants. “I can only take it so far. It will take the right opportunity for him to keep moving up.”
Jeff Brown can be reached at (608) 791-8403, or at jbrown@lacrossetribune.com
