With the Lawton Goodyear plant celebreting it's 30th year anniversary on Thurday, it showed the Goodyear's will continue to roll despite the downturn. The plant here had on hand special guest NASCAR driver Kurt Busch, where he helped in building a tire, and signed autographs for the fans in attendance. He stated "This was a blast", and his tour of the facilities.

The plant was also celebrating the production of it's 500 millionth tire, an occurance that is expected later on this month. When the demand for original equipment tire from the major automakers slowed, the plant switched gears, and moved production to mainly the after sector. With that strategy to company did not have to left go any of it's workers. in fact according to the plant manager they have hired about 200 new workers to help bring production up to full capacity. Goodyear does not reveal what production capacity is but the trade pubilcation Rubber & Plastics news said it is around 66,000 tires a day.