"Tires Designed For Champions"
Hoosier Tire began in 1957, during the early days of Midwestern racing. In those days, performance and safety were both compromised by the use of street tires for circle track racers. Bob and Joyce Newton, a successful amateur racing team, decided that they could fix the problem. From an abandoned barn in Indiana, they began a business re-treading street tires with softer, stickier rubber. The Hoosier name was chosen to reflect their Midwestern racing history.
From 1962 until 1978, Hoosier produced all their tires in conjunction with the Mohawk Rubber Company of Akron, Ohio. When the Akron plant closed, Bob and Joyce were faced with a decision that could make or break their company. With a mortgage on Hoosier Tire and their own home, they founded the R & J Manufacturing Corporation. The company performed so well that in 1985, they secured a $1 million loan to purchase equipment for mixing their own rubber compounds. Hoosier was the first company to produce racing tires from the ground up.
In 1988, the company's first year in the Winston Cup yielded 9 victories. The next season, Hoosier race tires won the Indianapolis 500. The company built a second plant in 1992, dedicated solely to producing "super speedway" tires designed for racing at over 200 mph. Unfortunately, they were forced to withdraw from NASCAR competition the following year. Under NASCAR rules, tire manufacturers must produce enough tires to supply every car in a race, regardless of how many of these cars are using such tires. For Hoosier, whose performance "rubber" compounds are so advanced that they have a limited shelf life, this rule was too expensive to continue.
Since 1998, the manufacturing side of Hoosier Tire has been named "Hoosier Tire & Rubber Corp". Hoosier is currently the largest racing tire manufacturer in the world, and takes pride in the fact that all of its tires are made in the USA. The company is still privately owned and operated by the Newton family, and is one of the largest employers in Plymouth, Indiana.
http://www.hoosiertire.com