Western Pa. siblings share father's love of engines, drag racing

Nick Bowman is pretty sure his father brought him to the drag racing track when he was less than 2 months old.

“I did the same with my son,” said Bowman, 38, of West Deer.

To say that the Bowmans are a racing family is a bit of an understatement: Nick’s father, Tim, owns Bowman Performance Racing Engines. Nick and his sister, Kara Jo Brank, are both drag racers.

“My dad builds engines, and I spent my entire life working in the garage,” said Brank, 43, of Avonmore, who recently brought home the Ironman Trophy from the International Hot Rod Association’s Nitro Series Pro Mod Nationals competition, held in early August at the Darana Dragway in Milan, Mich.

Brank said racing cars is all she’s ever wanted to do.

“Both my kids are 100% racing brats from the day they were born,” their father said.

One day, unbeknownst to her father, Brank decided to bring her first car, a 1989 Chrysler New Yorker, to the local track to race in the high school class.

And the 16-year-old won.

“I put the trophy on the kitchen table, and Dad said, ‘What is that?’ ” Brank said. “I told him I won, and he yelled, ‘With what?’ He wasn’t very happy when I told him it was the New Yorker — that car was supposed to be taking me to and from work — but he ended up letting me race it the rest of the summer.”

Her father even tracked down a 1973 Dodge Charger he sold, and bought it back for Brank to upgrade her race car.

“She ended up winning the high school championship twice,” he said.

These days, Brank isn’t racing a 35-year-old New Yorker or a ’73 Charger. She’s got a shiny drag racer with all kinds of fancy electronics.

“It’s a rear-engine dragster that’s Chevy powered, but we don’t need to talk about that,” said her father, who grew up in a Mopar (Dodge/Chrysler/Plymouth) household.

Below, watch her semi-final race at the Pro Mod Nationals.

But her brother is still rolling with a 1970 Plymouth Duster named “Nadine” that was designed, in his words, as “an original slant-6-powered grocery-getter.”

Today it’s a bit more souped-up than that, enough for Bowman to take the top spot in the 27th annual No-Box Bonanza race held recently in Norwalk, Ohio. “No-box” means the cars are not permitted to use any electronic devices that aid in reaction time.

“It was the largest-paying drag race in the world in my class,” Bowman said. “We accumulate points all weekend, and I claimed the points championship and walked away with almost $25,000 in cash. I’ve had more successful weekends on a very high-tier stage, but this was like a full step bigger in terms of the atmosphere and the racers who were there.”

Not to be outdone, Tim Bowman brought home a win Aug. 17 at his home track, Keystone Raceway in New Alexandria, running his 1964 Plymouth Fury.

“I’ve owned my car for 53 years and took it to two high school proms,” he said with a laugh. “I was into cars instead of misbehaving. My dad loved Mopar cars. He took great care of his, and we really got addicted to racing.”

Bowman passed that love along to his children. Brank drag races in the box class, where consistency is the key to winning. She participates in elapsed time bracket racing, where each driver runs a timed test pass and then chooses a “dial-in” time that must remain consistent as they compete against other drivers. The format makes victory less dependent on how much money a racing team can spend, or how fast a car can go, and more dependent on driver skill in areas such as reaction time, shifting ability and control of the car. It also allows for a wide variety of cars to race against one another.

“It all has to do with how you get off the starting line,” Brank said. “And a lot of times, you’re talking about a time difference in the thousandth of seconds.”

In the no-box class, Bowman has to consider additional factors.

“Kara’s car is built to go fast and straight. They call a dragster like hers a ‘rail,’ because it’s designed to just go straight down the track,” he said. “When you get into something like what I drive, there’s a lot more factors like whether you have a headwind pushing back on you, a tailwind pushing you forward or a cross-wind trying to move the car off course. It’s dangerous, but it’s dangerous in a different way than Kara’s dragster.”

Brank acknowledged that she’s taking a serious risk every time she puts her racing helmet on.

“You might not come back, and that has happened to friends,” she said. “But that risk also kind of fuels the passion to do it.”

Both siblings said they relish the excitement that comes with taking off from the starting line.

“It’s the best feeling in the world,” Brank said. “I can’t really explain the emotions you go through, but having all that power behind you, the sound of the motor — that’s why we keep getting back in those things.”

The urge to go fast doesn’t stop with the immediate family — two of Tim’s brothers race, and Brank’s husband, Frank, also is a drag racer who she met at the racetrack. She said for a lot of people, once they get a taste of drag racing, it sticks with them.

“It’s fun and it’s a rush,” she said.

The thrill doesn’t lessen with age: Tim Bowman said it felt really good to get a win under his belt.

“The kids are starting to show me up a little,” he said with a laugh.