Jim Howe’s New Screw-Blown No Prep Kings Camaro

If you’ve watched any of the “Street Outlaws” spinoff shows that Tennessee’s Jim Howe has been a part of, you know just how competitive his fire burns. Howe has won plenty of rounds bracket racing, and has earned a Limited Drag Radial championship, so he understands the work, the sacrifice, and the cost it takes to park a vehicle in the winner’s circle. Now, Howe is aiming to add some “No Prep Kings” (NPK) series hardware to his resume behind the wheel of his all-new 1967 Camaro known as “The Gaurdian.”

When Howe joined the NPK series last year he was piloting “The Warden,” his purpose-built Limited Drag Radial Camaro. The Warden was built to run larger tires, but not the big 36-inch wide hides that the majority of NPK cars run. Howe’s solution was to run the biggest tire that would fit under his Camaro, the 15×34-inch Big Bubba from Mickey Thompson. “The Warden” is also a true back-half car that’s 450 pounds overweight per the NPK rules, which is not the best recipe against some of the toughest competition the sport has to offer.

“We were fast before, but what we were running then will get your ass kicked now. Getting rid of the 450 pounds and moving to a car that’s built for no-prep racing was critical for our program. We had a lot of parts breakage in 2021 because of how hard I had to run the car to be competitive. I’m too competitive to back the car off, so that’s why we burnt it up so much,” Howe states.

Howe realized that if he wanted to be a legitimate NPK contender, he’d need a car that was designed for no-prep racing.

“Last August I started buying parts to build a new car for this year. I’ve been friends with David Monday, owner of David Monday Race Cars, for 30 years. He was helping me with ‘The Warden’ on slicks, so I decided to have him build the new car. I told him I wanted a steel body NPK Camaro, and his current chassis design fit what we needed. The new car would allow us to put a 17×36-inch tire under the rear just like the rest of the teams,” Howe says.

The pandemic has wreaked havoc on the racing industry when it comes to parts availability and timelines to get projects done. Howe and his partner John Odom’s racing plans were, not surprisingly, impacted by the problems COVID-19 created.