Robert Newton, Maker of Hoosier Racing Tires, Dies at 85 Robert Newton, who with his wife, Joyce, founded Hoosier Racing Tire, the Indiana company whose tires have become fixtures at car-racing tracks around the country, died on Wednesday at his home in Lakeville, Ind. Hoosier Racing Tire Robert Newton started Hoosier Racing Tire with his wife in an old horse barn in South Bend in 1957. The cause was complications of a stroke, said Dennis Sherman, the company's vice president for marketing. The purple, bold-serif Hoosier logo can be spotted at oval, drag and road-course tracks all over the world, as well as on go-kart tires. "It's the biggest racecar tire company in America," said Karl Fredrickson, publisher of Speedway Illustrated magazine. Hoosier makes tires primarily for people who race as individuals rather than for corporate-sponsored teams. "There are a thousand Saturday-night-type racetracks in the United States on which more than 130,000 individuals compete," Mr. Frederickson said, "and they are the ones who have been buying Hoosier tires since 1957." Hoosier, a privately held company, has its headquarters in Lakeville, Ind. and a factory in Plymouth, Ind. The company ships to more than 70 countries, Mr. Sherman said. The company began supplying tires to Nascar drivers in the early 1980s, and in 1989 Darrell Waltrip rode his stock car on Hoosier tires to victory in one of racing's most prestigious events, the Daytona 500. Robert Lee Newton was born in Downers Grove, Ill., on March 25, 1927, one of three children of Leo and Willie Hammons Newton. After serving in the Air Force after World War II, he settled in Tippecanoe, Ind., and became a farmer. Besides his wife, who is now the company president, Mr. Newton is survived by two sons, Terry and Donald; two daughters, Marjorie Skaggs and Mary Lee Purvis; 12 grandchildren and 9 great-grandchildren. The Newtons started their company in an old horse barn in South Bend in 1957, five years after they were married. By then, Mr. Newton had started racing stock cars on weekends at tracks in the Midwest. "They were running on regular street tires then, and he said he lost races because of tires coming apart," Mr. Sherman said. They started recapping street tires and putting soft rubber on them, giving it more grip so you can go faster and not tear it up.