John Bowe (born 16 April 1954 in Devonport, Tasmania) is an Australian racing driver, presently racing a Holden Torana in the Touring Car Masters series.
Bowe is a multiple Australian Champion, having twice won the Australian Drivers' Championship during the Formula Mondial era and the Australian Sports Car Championship, before winning the Australian Touring Car Championship in 1995. He has also won the prestigious Bathurst 1000 touring car endurance race twice, in 1989 and 1994. Both wins were as co-driver with longtime friend and teammate Dick Johnson driving for iconic Ford team Dick Johnson Racing.
Racing Cars
Bowe began racing at the age of sixteen in Formula Vee Elfin 500 in 1971, winning the Tasmanian state title on debut. The following year, he also won the Tasmanian Formula Ford title.
After graduating from domestic Formula Ford racing Bowe moved into the Australian Drivers Championship in the late 1970s, racing Elfin Formula 5000s for the most prestigious team of the era, the factory Ansett Team Elfin run by Elfin Sports Cars founder and chief designer Garrie Cooper. The pinnacle of his Formula 5000 career was finishing runner up in the 1979 Australian Grand Prix driving one of Cooper's Chevrolet V8 powered Elfin MR8s. In the same year he also came second in the Australian Formula 2 Championship.
Bowe would finish third in the 1980 Australian Drivers' Championship driving the MR8, and would finish fourth in the Formula 2 title. He would finish fourth in 1981 driving the Elfin MR9, the only Ground effects F5000 ever built. He also dropped to ninth place in the Formula 2 championship driving an Elfin Two-25 Volkswagen.
After playing second fiddle to Alfredo Costanzo for several seasons, Bowe broke through for his first Australian Drivers' Championship in 1984, backing it up the following year with his second title in his Ford powered Ralt RT4 for Chris Leach. The 1984 and 1985 championships were run under Formula Mondial regulations.
Bowe qualified on the front row for the 1984 Australian Grand Prix at Calder Park in Melbourne and led the race for the first 18 laps before a loose spark plug lead caused the 4 cyl Ford engine to misfire and he was passed by defending race winner Roberto Moreno of Brazil who went on to win the race. Bowe finally stopped on lap 33 and rejoined in 13th place. He would fight his way back to 6th place by the end of the race (2 laps down), setting the 3rd fastest race lap behind Moreno's Ralt and the similar car of Formula One driver Andrea de Cesaris.
Bowe's last open wheeler race was in the Formula Mondial support race at the 1986 Australian Grand Prix in Adelaide. Driving a Ralt RT4 in the race (for the first time in 12 months), Bowe equalled the category lap record for the Adelaide Street Circuit set one year earlier by American driver Ross Cheever, the younger brother of Formula One driver Eddie Cheever. Bowe's time of 1:33.20 for the 3.780 km (2.362 mi) track compared to the fastest Formula One race lap of the circuit that year of 1:20.78 set by Nelson Piquet driving a turbocharged Williams-Honda.
Bowe was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia for "significant service to motorsport as a touring car driver" in the 2021 Queen's Birthday Honours.
Sports Cars
John Bowe drove the Bryan Thompson–owned Mercedes-Benz 450 SLC-Chevrolet twin-turbo in Sports Sedan and GT events during the early 1980s when Thompson was in retirement, which stopped when Thompson came out of retirement in 1983. The Mercedes with its 4.2-litre Chevrolet engine put out a reported , but was somewhat unreliable due to the use of smaller turbo's.
In 1985 while still contesting the Australian drivers' Championship, Bowe was approached by Adelaide-based photographer and Sports Car racer Bernie Van Elsen to race his new car for the Australian Sports Car Championship (ASCC). The car, built by K&A Engineering in Adelaide and called a Veskanda C1, was initially powered by an F5000 sourced 5.0-litre Chevrolet V8, though this was changed to a 5.8-litre (350 cui) Chevrolet V8 in 1986 when CAMS increased the engine capacity limit for Group A Sports Cars from 5000 cc to 6000 cc. The Veskanda is generally regarded as the fastest Sports Car ever designed and built in Australia. In Bowe's talented hands the Veskanda Chev easily won the 1986 Australian Sports Car Championship, with the Bowe setting outright lap records (often faster than the open wheelers) at circuits around the country. Two of these records will stand forever as the tracks are now closed: Amaroo Park in Sydney (set in 1987, track closed in 1998), and the Surfers Paradise International Raceway (set in 1986, track closed in late 1987).