Roz Howard Sr.

Roz Howard, Sr.
Milledgeville, GA- Mr. Roswell Roe Howard, Sr. "Roz", age 91, passed away Tuesday, January 1, 2013. Funeral Services will be conducted Saturday, January 5, 2013 at 2PM in Lakeside Baptist Church with Rev. Tim Oliver officiating. Interment will follow in Heritage Memorial Park.
The family will be at Williams Funeral Home of Milledgeville Friday Evening from 6-8PM to receive friends.
Roz was born on a farm in middle Georgia in 1922. Growing up around machinery fascinated the boy, and he spent more time taking the family tractor apart and putting it back together than he did plowing.
In 1937, at age 15 he joined the CCC and learned even more to hone his skills as a mechanic. Drafted in the Army in 1942, he worked in the motor pool, so by the time he came back home, he was ready to build some cars. He told us recently he went to a track near Macon carved out of a cornfield when he got out of the Army. He was hooked.
After having his share of flips and crashes he was lucky enough to walk away unhurt. Before long he had the driving part figured out also. By the 1950's Roz was racing every track in Georgia, and later hooked up with Southern Racing Enterprises out of Atlanta and toured the South East. In 1957 the SRE joined with MARC (the Midwest Assoc. for Race Cars, later ARCA) and won the 1957 Regional Points Late-Model Championship. For the next 3 years, he hooked up with famed racing hall of famer Paul McDuffie and teammate Joe Lee Johnson for some Grand National (Nextel Cup) races. It was there at Darlington in 1960 that a wreck on the track went wrong and three friends of Roz's were killed in the infield, including McDuffie. After that, Roz took the cars to Atlanta, and along with Paul's widow, they auctioned them off.
Roz never looked back. As he told us one day, "I had a great career and won a championship and a bunch of races along the way." He raced from the cornfields of Macon to the asphalt at Darlington, and every outlaw track in between. He successfully retired to Milledgeville, GA.
He is was preceded in death by his loving wife, Treeasian Flowers Howard; sons, Todd and Randy Howard and parents, Elbert and Pearl Yaughn Howard. He is survived by his daughter, Janane (Kerry) Pilcher of Macon; sons, Roswell "Roz" (Liz) Howard, Jr. of Milledgeville and Craig (Cindy) Howard of Eatonton; best friends, Dr. Louis (Louise) Jacobs, Russell (Elaine) Sweatland and Otis (Evelyn) Hester; grandchildren, Bodie (Kim) Pilcher, Mandy (Kelly) Marsh, and Stephen (Sheila) Howard; 9 great-grandchildren and 1 great great-grandchild.
In lieu of flowers, the family requests that memorial contributions be made to the Race Car Hall of Fame, GARHOFA, Inc., P.O. Box 491 Kennesaw, GA 30156 or to Serenity Hospice.
Express online condolences at www.williamsfuneralhome.net
Williams Funeral Home of Milledgeville has charge of arrangements.