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Top Speed at Vegas!
Bruce Biegler - April 17, 2008
 Richmond, BC's Shawn Cowie, who first burst onto the NHRA Top Alcohol Dragster class scene like a rampaging bull last season, has fired yet another warning shot for the 2008 racing season.
While competing during last weekend's NHRA SummitRacing.com Nationals at Las Vegas, Cowie had his best NHRA national event outing yet with a "final four" placing and setting top speed of the meet overall for his category.
 Cowie and his talented team, which is lead by crew chief Bill Moore, qualified their supercharged machine #3 with a 5.371 secs at 268.97 mph. They then won round decisions over Brandon Johnson and Cody Perkins to set up a much anticipated semi-final head-to-head matchup versus another very formidable B/AD driven by Jim Whiteley. That particular race which featured the engine and tuning of Norm Grimes (Whiteley) against Bucky Austin (Cowie) was to many observers the best race of the event.
Whiteley gained a slight starting line advantage and ultimately hung on for a very exciting 5.342 secs 269.13 mph to 5.370 secs 269.24 mph decision. Shawn's top end terminal speed of 269.24 mph was the fastest of the event in TAD. Whiteley went on to a runner-up finish -- his car rather inexplicably smoked the tires hard in the final round resulting in a lost to the A/FD of Jim Isabell.
For Shawn Cowie the strong Las Vegas finish is a good indicator of things to come for 2008. The up-and-coming Western Canadian driver who ran multiple 270+ mph runs last season, is clearly primed for bigger and better in 2008 on both the Lucas Oil Divisional and National event scenes.
(Bruce Biegler Photos)
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