Friendships and championships: Ironville builder turns out thoroughbred engines

Apr. 1—IRONVILLE — Randy McDowell has spent most of his life making engines sing.

In an unassuming building on the side of a mountain in Boyd County, machines scream with horsepower.

"I am here to make friendships and win championships," McDowell said, standing in his shop, Power Tech Racing Engines, adorned with trophies on shelves and any flat space. "And the engines have won lots of championships."

Over his years as an engine builder, McDowell has built more than 9,400 engines and usually has more than 200 work orders open at any time.

"My mom always told me 'you can do it like a racehorse or like a mule.' You've got two choices in life: you can be a mule, nothing wrong with being a mule, but you can be a racehorse and set your own pace. Here, we are racehorses, we run the derby every day," McDowell said.

In his shop sits everything from Hemis to Honda heads, from big block Fords to an original 1967 Corvette big block 427. The shelves are filled with countless camshafts, timing chains, pistons; everything needed to make big horsepower.

But building a fire breathing engine isn't enough for McDowell; it's about more than just the money.

"I build engines for friends," McDowell said, explaining he has turned down work if he didn't like the way people spoke to him.

Building for friends empowers McDowell to understand and tailor the engines to his customers' needs.

"When a customer comes to me, I get in their head. I want to know what they want to do," McDowell said.

McDowell makes most of his engines for race teams, including drag cars, dirt circle track racers and 410 sprints cars. If the engine doesn't match the style of the driver, the car won't perform at its peak. Additionally, McDowell finds out about the car the engine is going in.

"I can build you a five-star engine, but if you've only got a two-star suspension, it doesn't work," he said. "It's everything."

To compete, the car must be a complete build, including brakes, suspension, tires and everything. In fact, a car with a 700 horsepower engine can outperform a car with a 900 horsepower engine if it has the right parts, he added.

"We love the customers that understand that philosophy," McDowell said.

This approach to complete car building has led to repeated success of the cars sporting his engines. Cars powered by Power Tech Racing Engines have reached countless winner's circles across the country, even making Halls of Fame.

The durability and reliability of the engines have created lifelong customers and friendships.

McDowell builds the engines with the help of two people, his son, Briahr, and friend Joe Swim.

"I brought him an engine years ago and he made a great one," Swim said.

The attention to detail Swim saw in the engine motivated to learn from McDowell, which he has done for the last three years.

"(An engine) will be perfect when it goes out of here," Swim said. "They all get that same attention to detail. Everyone wants it fast. I told one guy we will never sacrifice perfection for your speed."

"We put so much pride into every piece, whether it be a Honda head off of a daily driver to one of our high-end race engines, we put pride in every piece that we do," McDowell said.

Currently the biggest holdup for most of their builds is the supply chain, said McDowell.

"Sometimes it's three to six weeks to eight or more," said McDowell. "I've had engines here for years."

At the back of the shop sits the newest addition, already filled with engine blocks and boxes of parts, a storage area.

"Once we get all the parts, we can build it in three weeks or so," McDowell said.

The bug

Like so many in motor sports, the bug bit him young.

"I done my first carburetor when I was 9 years old," McDowell recounted.

"(McDowell's stepfather) wasn't having much luck, it was an old 1973 Ford LTD or something and I'm sitting on the fender watching him and my mom hollers at him his lunch was ready. After three attempts and flames shooting across the hood, he goes to eat," McDowell said.

When his stepfather went into the house, McDowell saw his opportunity and grabbed the carburetor and headed to his grandfather's smoke house on the family farm in Boyd County.

"I took it apart and I seen what was wrong. How did I know, there are springs and clips and the float clip," McDowell said. "What happened when he tried to start it was the fuel pressure would lift the float up and shoot fuel everywhere. I just took the clip and snapped it back down and put the carb back together. I was putting it back on the car when (my stepdad) came out from eating lunch and he yelled 'What are you doing? Get away from there,'" McDowell recalled. "I said you can't fix it ... try it. Well, he rolled it over, it fired up and ran fantastic."

McDowell's stepfather, who worked in the strip mines, bragged about his work and soon those around started coming to the preteen to rebuild their carbs.

"Most of the money I got I gave to my mom to help with the bills and everything. If I made $20, I'd give mom $15 and I'd put $5 in my pocket," McDowell said.

Over the next several years, McDowell spent time after school, on the weekends and summers working on cars, mostly rebuilding carburetors.

Down the road sat the object of McDowell's eye.

"It was a 1969 Mustang, and I'd tell mom, 'One of these days I'm going to own that car.' and mom said 'You dream too big,'" McDowell said.

McDowell would jog the two miles down the road to the guy and ask about buying it. The man turned McDowell down and sent him back up the road empty handed.

"I kept going and going," McDowell said. "That car was everything to me."

However, after six years, McDowell got a different answer.

"I said 'I'm here to buy that car,' he said 'son, if you want that car, I'll take $2,500 for it,"' McDowell said. "After all those years I had dead-on $600 saved up."

McDowell ran back home and told his mom and grandfather he'd gotten a price. McDowell started planning all the work he could do for area farmers to get the other $1,900.

A few days later, McDowell came in from school and started his chores, but his mother sat him at the table.

"Son, I want to talk to you ... you're a hard worker ... I want you to go and make me proud," she told him as she slid an envelope across the table, McDowell recalled.

McDowell opened the envelope and there were 25 hundred dollar bills inside.

"'Don't worry, the payment book's in there,'" McDowell recalled his mother, Marie, telling him.

McDowell used the money he had saved to get the engine machined and rebuilt his first engine before he had a driver's license.

"I waited until mom was gone and made a few passes," McDowell said. "I was hooked right then."

McDowell got his driver's license and quickly took his Mustang street racing.

"Back then we went to twin bridges. It was exactly a quarter mile," McDowell said. "It was a 100 feet in the air if you blew a tire, but at 16. you don't think about stuff like that."

A man backed McDowell's first race, a $500 street race, and McDowell won. McDowell won many races and the results followed him home.

"One day I came in from school one evening and mom grabs me and throws me in that same kitchen chair," McDowell said. "She says, 'Son I want to know what kind of drugs you're on. What kind of drugs you peddling?'"

Confused, McDowell recalled telling his mother he didn't know what she was talking about. Marie checked him over and slid a paper across the table to McDowell. It was the loan release from the bank. It had only been six months into the three-year loan.

"I said 'no, no it's not drugs,'" McDowell said. "It was the hardest thing I've ever done, because I didn't want to upset mom. ... I looked at her and said 'drag racing.' I said 'I can make $500 in 10 seconds.' I said 'Mom, you said go and make you proud and I did.'"

From the streets to owning his own shop

McDowell quickly built a reputation as a driver and an engine builder and started working at Performance Engineer in Ashland.

It was there his love for racing engines and the needs of racing teams flourished while he worked to be a magnet to learn as much as possible.

In his 30s, McDowell decided to take the leap and open his own shop.

"In 1999, I came out on my own," McDowell said. "There was very big following I had I'd made over the years ... To go out on your own at 34 and drop half a million dollars on equipment was the hardest decision of my life."

With a $10,000 payment looming over his head each month, McDowell broke it down and worked out what he had to make an hour.

"If I made $15 an hour I'd be a success. The problem was at 2 o'clock in the morning or 2 o'clock in the evening it's still $15 per hour," McDowell said. "So if I laid down and slept for three hours it cost me $45."

McDowell built a shop on the side of a mountain up from his house.

"Me and two other guys built this in 90 days," McDowell said. "We poured the concrete, righted the walls and plumbed it and we was in in 90 days."

During the early days of the shop, McDowell went through a divorce and said he matured a lot in those years.

"The drive was still there," McDowell said. "Now that I'm 56, I sleep two hours ... I've destroyed my life to build this, but at the same time, it's been the most rewarding thing I've done."

While the shop is filled with machines required to make horsepower, one piece of machinery absent from the shop is a dynamometer, which helps tune a newly built engine.

"After 35 years and 9,400 assemblies, if I have to put them on a stand and test them, I'm not very good, am I?" McDowell explains. "We build them here and they're ready to race as soon as they go out."

McDowell says the dyno can't recreate the conditions his race engines will be under, adding, "I've always said when they make a dyno that could pull five Gs, I'd buy one."

McDowell also said he doesn't want to chase horsepower numbers and instead wants to focus on building engines that are reliable.

"Some of these engines go for 25 events before they come in for a rebuild," Swim said.

McDowell said and event wasn't 25 laps, it was practice, qualifying, heats and the main race, sometimes an event can be 60 laps.

Building his family

Not only has building the engines created lifelong friends, it helped him find his family.

After getting divorced in the 2000s, he set up a booth at a World of Wheels event and was talking to people about his engine program when his and his current wife's paths crossed.

"I needed someone to build an engine for my son and I was told to talk to some guy named Randy McDowell," said Sandy Koutsunis-McDowell.

"I was talking to people and up walked this lady and tapped me on the shoulder," McDowell said.

"I wasn't feeling well and wanted to go home. I wasn't going to wait in line, so I just walked up around the table," Koutsunis-McDowell.

"Here this pretty lady walked up and asked to build an engine and my heart just (raced)," McDowell recalled.

McDowell built Sandy's son an engine and the two ended up getting married and having Briahr, 14.

Dreams too big to be

"That's a real good question," McDowell said, pausing to think when asked about his plans for the future.

"I hope that Briahr steps in daddy's shoes and continues the pride we put in every piece," McDowell said.

"I feel I've got 10 good years left, I'm 56, that'd be 66," McDowell said. "I'm just in a window where I'm starting to breathe. I've paced myself over the years."

Briahr works in the shop and is already starting to learn the trade from his father.

"My least favorite part is the sweeping," Briahr said.

Briahr added he plans to continue to build the carbed engines his father teaches him on.

"I'm slowing down, but the inspiration of racing engines is huge," McDowell said.

It's taken 17 years, but he once again has a '69 Mustang, this time a white Mach 1, ready to drag race.

"That car can jump speed bumps, it's bad," Swim said.

While McDowell has hung up his racing shoes, "I feel it's not fair for me to compete against my work," McDowell said.

Part of him wonders about unleashing her on the track and getting some more quarter mile passes under his belt.

"This thing would be a ride, no doubt," McDowell said. "They want me to bring it to the race track and compete so badly. Could I do it at 60? I don't know."

McDowell hopes to continue to put out engines that are sought after.

"We've got guys passing a lot of shops to get to this little shop," McDowell said. "When they get out of the truck, I know they're excited about their engine, but I'm excited about them and I'm excited to make a new friend."

After reflecting, McDowell said, "the future holds friendships and championships, they all go together."