NHRA - National Hot Rod Association

By any measure, Shawn Cowie has lived through more adversity than most racers will ever face. The British Columbia driver, who was terribly hurt in a devastating April 2011 motorcycle accident, has rebuilt himself, rebuilt his racing program, and rebuilt his place atop one of NHRA’s most grueling Sportsman categories as a back-to-back world champion in Top Alcohol Dragster.

Cowie edged out five-time world champ Joey Severance when a rain-out at the season finale froze the points and locked Cowie into the top, but the championship wasn’t won in Pomona: It was earned everywhere else. Rain may have stopped the racing in Pomona, but nothing — not lingering injury, not pressure, not the deepest field the class has seen in years, not Severance — could stop Cowie.

Cowie’s path to a repeat started with a No. 1 qualifying berth but a tough semifinal loss to Severance at the Lucas Oil NHRA Winternationals, followed by a huge win from the No. 1 spot at the NHRA 4-Wide Nationals in Las Vegas, his third straight win at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway dating back to the 2024 four-wide event there.

“That was kind of cool,” Cowie said. “I won the first four-wide race there [in 2021], and then, because we’re not having the race there next year, possibly the last one, too.”

Seven of Cowie’s 27 career wins have come in Las Vegas, but it was at his home track in Mission, B.C., where Cowie made the run of the season, powering to a 5.11, the quickest run in blown alcohol dragster history, in mid-June.

“Being able to run 5.11 was pretty remarkable,” he said. “We had tested a lot before the event and then the conditions were honestly Disneyland; the corrected air was around 500 feet. Being able to do that at my home track was very special. That’s where I started off racing, and then where my son got his license this year as well. It was a memorable moment being at home to be able to do that in front of all the family and friends.”

Cowie won that race, too, one of two regional wins to go with two national event wins, two runner-ups, and two semifinal finishes.

“I tell my guys that my expectations are semifinals or better at every race,” he explained. “I don’t really even look at points until after Seattle to see where we’re at.”

In Seattle, where he finished runner-up, he felt the tide turning.

“Matt [Cummings] and Jackie [Fricke] were the two who were in the running at that time. Joey hadn’t gone to a lot of races yet, but he came on pretty strong towards the end of the year,” he said.

Just as a world championship had eluded him until last season, a win at the sport’s crown jewel, the Cornwell Quality Tools NHRA U.S. Nationals, had also remained just out of grasp despite final-round appearances in Indy in 2010 and 2016.

“I was starting to think, ‘There’s gonna be that one race I go through my whole career that I’m never gonna win,’ ” he admitted.

This time, the Mundie’s Towing team sawed its way through four formidable opponents — Madison Payne, Jon Bradford, Melanie Johnson, and Jamie Noonan — to get the impressive win. After dazzling in the first three rounds with runs of 5.20, 5.17, and 5.21, he faced off with Noonan, who was hot off of a dazzling 5.16 semifinal pass.

It was there that Cowie made another great tuning call.

“Everybody was like, ‘What do we have for him?’ and I said, ‘We’re going to race the racetrack. The racetrack is going to go away. We’re going to slow the car down. If they can go and get on the track on a low .20, then they deserve it,’ and it ended up being the right call because he went up in smoke right away and we won with a 5.25.”

It was the biggest win of his season, and one that helped offset challenges still to come when his boost provided by his blowers began to tank late season.

“We ended up dropping down three or four pounds, and the timeline to get a new blower is almost a year now, so we tried to make it work with what we had. I even brought [former tuner] Norm Grimes back to help figure it out.”

An essential semifinal finish at the Texas NHRA FallNationals boosted his hopes of a repeat, and as the season drew down to just the Vegas national and regional event and season finale in Pomona, the math was simple: Cowie was in the lead but needed strong showings. Severance needed wins.

“Honestly, I’d rather be behind the chasing than being first,” Cowie admitted. “There’s more pressure on it that way; I just try to think of it as a qualifying run every pass.”

Needing an event win at either Las Vegas event, Severance reached the semi’s at the national and was taken out in round one of the regional, setting up a must-win scenario at the In-N-Out Burger NHRA Finals.

The Pomona finale was forecast to be wet, and it was. The teams got one qualifying pass and one elimination round on Thursday, and Cowie fell in the opening frame. Then the skies opened, and Severance still needed three more win lights to pass Cowie. NHRA called a driver’s meeting on Sunday.

“I had hung around for two days sitting in the rain; I was at the point where I was just gonna start packing it up,” said Cowie. “I didn’t even see a point going to the meeting, but I did, and then they told us they’re going to cancel the race, and there’s no option to move it.

“Inside I’m smiling and joyful, because I know I won the championship, but I did feel bad for everybody that was still in, especially Joey, because he still had a shot, but it was the right call. There would have been no racetrack; it would have been dangerous.”

When asked what’s next, Cowie was honest. He still battles the injuries from 14 years ago, which he won’t use as an excuse but still hampers his reaction times. Both legs and his pelvis were injured, and his right ankle is fused, so he has no mobility at all, and the scar tissue affects his left leg dumping the clutch.

“Obviously, I’m a little disadvantaged on this — and I’m getting older these days, too — but I just continue working on it,” he said. “The crew bailed me out by horsepower and performance, and I’ve bailed them out on reaction time before, so it’s kind of a give and take. I asked my guys if they’d entertain me going to a torque converter with a button in it, and everybody told me they would retire. That answered my question.”

Still, a three-peat is very much on his mind.

“Just winning one championship alone is such an achievement. Now, winning two is like, ‘Oh my God’; a third would be over the top. The parity is probably the best that’s ever seen it — Fricke, Cummings, Bradford, Joey, Madison Payne, McKenna Bold; anybody can win at any given day, which makes it more meaningful.”

In addition to his earlier-mentioned crew, Cowie thanked his wife, Taylor; kids Kaiden, Jackson, and Tate; his parents, Ron and Marianne; sister Rhonda; Tom Cole, Patrick Browne, Jon Phillips, Jim Ramsay; and nephew James Cowie, plus Mundie’s Towing, NGK Spark Plugs, West Can Auto Parts, and Core Garage Solutions.