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It's amazing how a single incident can turn things around in life. Last year, Federal-Mogul Dragster driver Bruce Bowler was cruising along having a good season for a guy who was only getting back into serious competition after nearly two decades.

By early September he had won two NHRA West Central Division Federal-Mogul Drag Racing Series events and went into the division's final race at Tri-State Racway in Earlville, Iowa, closing in on the division points lead. At the event in Earlville, the Denver resident went to the final round against Billy Bybee, who was leading the points at the time. When Bybee took the win, the division announcer, Bruce Kamada, announced to the crowd that he had just clinched the division's Federal-Mogul Dragster championship.

That statement got Bowler and his team thinking. And then it got them mad.

"We sat down and did some calculating, figuring out different scenarios," said Bowler, 60. "We knew Bybee couldn't claim points from anymore races and we still had four from which we could earn points. We figured out that two more wins, along with that runner-up, would make us the division champions."

Then Bowler went up and had a talk with Kamada. Bowler says he let the announcer know, in no uncertain terms, that the Bowler team still had a chance, even if it was an outside chance.

Then, to prove his point, the team attended the last two points races of the year; at Thunder Valley Raceway in Noble, Okla., and Firebird International Raceway in Phoenix.

The event in Phoenix is purposefully timed to be the week before the final national event in Pomona, Calif., and traditionally has more than 600 cars in competition. Winning that event is a feat in itself.

Bowler did win both events and took the crown right off Bybee's head.

"We had burned up every cylinder head we had in Earlville," remembers Bowler. "But we decided right then that as long as we had a chance at the title we were going to try. We sent our equipment to engine builder Brad Anderson via Fed Ex and he got us fixed up for the fight."

Bowler particularly relishes the championship because it was a family effort. His oldest son, Scott, is his crew chief and two of his other sons, Chris and Mike, are on the crew as well. Bowler says that racing is fun and going fast is good, but it's spending time with his sons that means the most.

The Bowler clan will be at The Colonel's Brainerd International Raceway & Resort competing in the West Central Division's second NHRA Federal-Mogul Drag Racing Series event of the year, June 8-10.