Racer takes one last lap.

Byline: Rebecca Nolan The Register-Guard

COTTAGE GROVE - Mark Lynn Howard was killed last week while working on a specialty race car for his 17-year-old daughter, April.

During a memorial service Wednesday, April Howard drove that same car around the track at Cottage Grove Speedway, her father's casket following behind in a long black hearse.

Friends had rushed to complete the car in time for the service to honor the man so many of them loved and admired. Howard's old racing number, 26, was painted in red on the hood of the modified Oldsmobile.

As the two cars circled the track, silence fell over hundreds of mourners who had gathered at the speedway to remember their slain friend and mentor.

"This is probably one of the worst hours that many of us will face in our entire lives," said Rich Struckmeier, a relative of Howard's wife. "We're here because we frankly couldn't imagine being anywhere else this morning."

Police said Mark Howard, 50, was killed Friday by his wife's 22-year-old lover, who told detectives he wanted the older man "out of the way" so he could continue his two-year affair with Janet Lynn Howard.

Derek Allan Ofenham of Springfield allegedly confessed to shooting Howard five times with a .22-caliber rifle inside Pro Auto Racing, Howard's business at 119 N. Seneca Road.

Ofenham was being held in the Lane County Jail without bail on a charge of intentional murder. He is scheduled for a preliminary hearing on Tuesday.

The two-hour memorial service focused mainly on Howard's life rather than on the circumstances surrounding his death. But people did what people do in such situations - they try to make sense of the senseless by talking about it.

"It's an absolute shock that someone would do something like this, especially to such a mild-mannered guy," said Ernie Owen Jr. of Cottage Grove. Owen has worked at the speedway for 20 years and came to know Howard well.

"He was mild-mannered - a wonderful human being," Owen said. "He would give you the shirt off his back."

One by one, friends and family members climbed the flag stand at the track and shared stories of Howard's life as a family man, business owner, race car driver and mentor to young drivers.

Jim Howard said his younger brother first fell in love with racing while a student at Eugene's Harris Elementary School. A teacher had complained that the boy was always late to class. After some investigating, Jim Howard learned his brother stopped to visit a race car down the block every morning. After a scolding, Mark Howard came up with a plan.

"The next morning, he left the house 15 minutes early," Jim Howard said.

When the family moved to Cottage Grove, the young boy collected bottles and cashed them in for admittance to the speedway, which he called

"The Grove."

Denny Deathridge said he met Howard in 1977 and they became instant friends. He explained how Howard earned his nickname one day after slamming the right side of his race car into a crash wall.

"His girlfriend-slash-pit crew at the time, Jan, said, `Why did you do that, Marky Wallbanger?' ' Deathridge said. "And that was how he got his nickname."

As an auto shop teacher at Thurston and Junction City high schools from 1999 to 2002, Howard banned the word "can't" from his classroom.

"I believe there is nothing he could not do," Deathridge said. "It didn't matter if it was racing or badminton, Mark always tried to win."

Wearing a blue racing suit, April Howard took the stand and sang the national anthem. She turned away from the crowd and toward a U.S. flag flying at half-staff. Afterward, she hugged 9-year-old sister Kady and climbed into the car her father built.

Dozens of racers from across the state joined her on the track, circling in formation in honor of her father. Drivers had pasted pictures of Howard to the sides of their cars or painted on remembrances such as "In loving memory of Mark Howard, No. 26." The crowd cheered as they whipped around the track, kicking up a thick cloud of dust.

But all went silent when the black hearse emerged onto the track and slowly rolled through a gauntlet of multicolored race cars and their drivers, helmets removed in respect. Later those same drivers released white balloons stamped with a blue number 26 into the sunny blue sky.

CAPTION(S):

Dozens of racers lined the track as the hearse carrying Mark Lynn Howard's casket circled Cottage Grove Speedway.