Drag Illustrated Issue 125, September 2017 | Page 68

WORLD SERIES OF PRO MOD I n the months leading up to the inaugural Drag Illustrated World Series of Pro Mod, names like Coughlin, Janis, Jack- son and Whiteley were brought up in the discus- sions over who would win the lucrative race. No one could have predicted that the winner wouldn’t be one of those names, drivers who compete in the NHRA J&A Service Pro Mod Series on a full-time basis, but would instead be Mike Bow- 68 | D r a g man, who was inserted into the fan vote winner spot just weeks before the race. “The owner of the company I work for, Ray Coburn at Coburn Equip- ment, I asked him if it was OK if I took a few days off to come race here,” Bowman remembers. “He said, ‘Heck yeah! It’s a hundred thousand dollars; you better go get you some of that!’ So, we loaded up the trailer and got ready to leave for Denver.” A past NMCA champion and I l l u s t r a t e d | DragIllustrated.com winner of the 2016 Street Car Super Nationals in Las Vegas, Bowman began the week at the Precision Racing Suspension/Penske Racing Shocks Test Session, where his tur- bocharged ’69 Chevelle made Ban- dimere Speedway history, though only he and a few others knew be- cause of the no-scoreboards format of the event. “I unloaded the car and made the first full pass, and ‘Sporty’ Ban- dimere came over and told me I made the first five-second door car pass here at Denver. That was an honor to me. The weekend just kept getting more amazing for me. I ended up making six (test) runs and decided to sit out a couple of the rounds. I wanted to save my motor for the race. The car’s already been down the racetrack six times, I don’t need to go out there and beat on it. I think that was the right decision because you never know what’s go- ing to happen on the very next run.” While Bowman made his shake- down runs on Friday evening, he Issue 125 CONQUERING ‘THE MOUNTAIN’