This one’s for Don: Why Riverhead Raceway is saluting Don Howe with Saturday’s NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour race

Don Howe just can’t seem to get away from racing. In his youth, he was a self-described motor head who was so infatuated with cars that he began working on them before he was old enough to go in the pits at most Northeastern speedways. Working on race cars eventually turned into driving them. In 1970, when he was 18, he began racing in the Figure 8 division at Long Island’s Riverhead Raceway. He had no way to know it at the time, but that turned out to be the start of a legendary career that saw him win six championships at the track between 1971 and 1995. That’s why Howe, now 74, will be honored Saturday prior to the running of the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour Miller Lite Salutes Don Howe 200 (8 p.m. ET on FloRacing). ENTRY LIST: See who's racing Saturday at Riverhead The event, held each summer at Riverhead, honors a driver from the region who enjoyed significant success at Riverhead and elsewhere. Previous honorees include Mike Ewanitsko, Wayne Anderson and Steve Park. “John Ellwood (Riverhead Raceway General Manager) called me and presented that to me and asked if I’d be interested in that,” Howe said. “At first I was kind of shocked, because I thought, ‘Wow, this is a big honor so to speak as far as my racing career goes.’ I was always kind of lowkey and a quiet guy who was behind the scenes more. I didn’t make a big deal over what I had accomplished and things like that. “It was surprising at first, but then I got more time to think about it and the way my career has gone, and I said, ‘Well, it wasn’t that bad after all.’” Howe’s success at Riverhead spanned three decades. It all started in the 1970s thanks to a relationship with legendary Long Island car owner Carl Zeh. [caption id="attachment_512929" align="alignleft" width="300"] Don Howe (2) battles alongside Reggie Ruggiero during a NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour event at Riverhead Raceway in 1994. (Photo: Courtesy Riverhead Raceway)[/caption] “I got involved with a driver named Frank Curtis, so I started working on his car,” Howe recalled. “I started working on his car, and he raced for a few years, and then he sold the car. I happened to go with Frank Curtis’ brother-in-law, Carl Zeh; he had a car they were racing at the time, and Jim Malone was the driver of their car. So, I went down with that team and started working on their car. “I worked on it for a few years, and then I traded a ’57 Chevy street car for a ’57 Chevy Figure 8 car, and I started racing Figure 8s in 1970. I did pretty well with that, and I got the bug, so to speak. I was Rookie of the Year that year. Then I built my own ’57 Chevy and raced in the Figure 8s the following year and won the championship.” Howe then transitioned to the Modified class with a hand-me-down Modified that had been driven by Jim Malone, a two-time Riverhead Modified champion. Howe raced in the Modified division for the first time in 1972 with Malone’s former car before building his own Pinto Modified for the 1973 season; he used that car to win his first Riverhead Modified championship. He captured another title in 1984 while still driving for Zeh. He also captured the final Modified championship at Islip Speedway that same season. “I was with Carl Zeh and the Malone team for quite awhile,” Howe recalled. “I raced with Carl for a good 25 years, I guess it was.” Fast forward to the 1990s, and Howe was still as competitive as ever. After his lengthy relationship with Zeh came to an end, he began working for a new team owner. “I gave it up for about a year and was working on a car owned by Joe Bertuccio,” Howe explained. “He owned the car, and a friend of mine was driving it. He parted ways with his driver and asked me if I’d like to drive it, so I went back racing again.” The pairing struck gold between 1993-95, winning three consecutive Riverhead Modified championships. Howe is one of just three drivers to win three consecutive Modified titles at Riverhead, joining Charlie Jarzombek and John Beatty Jr. on that exclusive list. [caption id="attachment_512930" align="alignleft" width="300"] Don Howe (2) won five Riverhead Raceway Modified titles along with a Figure 8 title during a career that lasted three decades. (Photo: Courtesy Riverhead Raceway)[/caption] It was during that time when Howe won the only NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour event of his career, the 1994 Miller Genuine Draft 201 at Riverhead. The drivers he beat that day included Reggie Ruggiero, Wayne Anderson, Tony Hirschman, Jeff and Rick Fuller, Tim Connolly, Tom Baldwin and Mike Ewanitsko, among many others. “It was strange the way that race went down,” Howe recalled. “Somebody had dumped something on the track; I don’t remember where I was running position-wise at the time. I had spun, so seeing as I was starting in the rear, I went into the pits. “My crew chief was an excellent tire changer. We jacked the car up and changed both of my rear tires, and I was able to get out of the pits without losing a lap. I think that’s what won me that race. It was probably midpoint of the race, and then once everybody else had pitted, that put toward the front.” Howe stepped away from driving after four years with Bertuccio, but he keeps finding his way back. After another brief comeback driving for Bertuccio a few years later, Howe now competes in the Eddie Partridge Vintage All Stars division at Riverhead. RELATED: Everything to know before Saturday's race at Riverhead The car he drives in that class is the same car he won track championships at Riverhead and Islip with in 1984. The car, a chassis built by NASCAR Hall of Famer Richie Evans and Billy Nacewicz, was meticulously restored by Howe after being tracked down by Bertuccio. “I brought the car home, and I did all the work on it in my own garage,” Howe said. “I worked on it for probably close to a year, because the car was a mess. I restored it. Corwith’s Auto Body was a big sponsor of mine the whole time I was with Carl Zeh, so I had Corwith’s do all the paint work on it. It’s not a car that was wrapped; it was painted like we used to do in the old days. I took the car back up to Joe’s shop, and they put the power train in for me. Then it came back to me, and I’ve had it ever since.” Howe, still a tenacious competitor at 74 years young, plans to bring his restored hot rod to Riverhead this Saturday so he can chase a victory in the Vintage All Stars class on the same night the track is honoring him. A win, Howe thinks, isn’t out of the question. “I’ve thought about that. I’ve got some stiff competition in the vintage series now,” Howe said. “It’s going to be harder to do that. We actually raced last week, and I finished second. You know as well as anybody how a race goes. That’s racing, you know?”