For local business owner, life is one big drag race

Howard Anderson works hard and plays real hard. Moving to Auburn in 1976 from the Bay Area and purchasing Sierra Pipe, a small plumbing supply business, Anderson quickly went to work building a very successful business that today employs more than 30. At 65, Anderson has the drive and personality of a much younger man, still working five days a week helping customers, making deliveries and running the supply business he built as he has for the last 32 years. His story as a successful businessman is interesting enough — but it's what he does when he leaves his office that will start your heart pounding.Anderson's father died when he was just a youngster, and he fell in with his two older brothers that were very much into automobile drag racing in the Bay Area, where he was raised. As a teenager he drove his brothers' drag cars and made many appearances at the Fremont Raceway. Gaining experience, Anderson's skills at drag racing improved as he raced local circuits in the Bay Area. Taking time off to raise a family, Anderson put his racing career on hold until his children got older and he could afford the time to travel and maintain his racecar. "In 1989 we got going again, and the car we currently race now is a '38 Chevy in the National Hot Rod Association's AA/GAS Supercharged Class," Anderson said. Anderson's game is drag racing and he does his best to get down the quarter-mile straightaway faster than anyone else. He holds four track records in his class and currently is the world record holder in his class covering the quarter-mile distance in 6.617 seconds at 206.51 miles per hour.Running a race car in the class Anderson races in is an involved business and he acknowledges that though he drives the car much more goes into it. It takes Anderson and his race crew (which currently includes his brother Dan Anderson, Chris Kruger and Mel Vargas) up to 15 hours to maintain and manage the car on the road and at the races. There is a certain amount of danger that Anderson exposes himself to every time he straps himself into his car to make a pass. In 1993 Anderson was driving a different kind of drag car that he flipped eight times at Sears Point Raceway and needed to be transported by helicopter to the hospital. He ended up with a slight concussion. His wife of 47 years, Donna, used to attend his races, but now prefers to stay home and tend her garden and be with the couple's four grandchildren. The age factor isn't much of an issue, as at least a third of the racers in Anderson's class are retired or near retired guys with the time to compete at this level. "We're all friends in the pits, but at the start line it's a different story," he said. "We're number one enemies until after the race."