Considered the biggest race in Pro Mod history, Mike Bowman didn’t flinch.

Bowman raced into the history book by capturing the title at the inaugural Drag Illustrated World Series of Pro Mod winner takes all $100,000 race.

Bowman, in his 1969 Chevelle, beat Steven Whiteley in his 2014 Cadillac, in the final round.

Bowman clocked a 6.274-second elapsed time at 238.70 mph to defeat Whiteley who slowed to 7.787 seconds. Those were the only two ETs and mph shown all weekend.

“Words can’t say enough,” Bowman said. “This by far is the highlight of my racing career, and I’ve been doing it a long time. I’m so happy Wes (Buck) called me. If he hadn’t called me and I didn’t put the effort and hours into changing everything to come here this wouldn’t have happened.”

The victory in the finals had its shares of tense moments.

“I had to whack the throttle a couple of times and it was rattling,” Bowman said. “I whacked the throttle and it moved toward the guard rail a little bit. Then I got out of the throttle and back in it a little bit. I saw him kind of moving around over there and once I was out there far enough and got back in throttle, he’s not going to catch me. I should be able to take it from here and I did.”

Bowman’s victory parade was comprised of wins over Derek Menholt, Mike Biehle, Shane Molinari and Whiteley.

“To all my competitors, especially J&A Service Pro Mod, Jim and Annie Whiteley have done much for this,” Bowman said. “Not just for this race, but NHRA stuff and that’s what excites me and drives me to race these guys, we are the best at what we do. There’s nothing like it. The competitor, you just go from one round to the next, and this another round, and you try and not get nervous.”

While standing in the winner’s circle, Bowman had decisions to make like where he was going to put his championship belt and the boatload of cash he earned.

“The belt, I don’t know if my wife (Kristy) will let me put it in the living room, but that’s probably a good place for it,” Bowman said. “The $100,000, I’m sure I will probably spend that pretty quick. It doesn’t take long in what we are doing to spend that kind of money. I’m just very fortunate to be here.”

The win is even more amazing for Bowman considering he was pondering about making the trip to Bandimere Speedway, and then he decided to make the journey from Southern California to compete in his 1969 Chevelle.

“We were contemplating on coming and it was kind of a last-minute thing,” Bowman said. “Once we decided to go we had a little time to load up and change a bunch of stuff, we changed a bunch of parts and setup for here Being in that top group of guys is pretty special. I didn’t want to miss out on that. Now, I’m just trying to take all this in.”

On Saturday, Bowman came up big in the first round defeating Derek Menholt, who won the $10,000 wildcard race Friday night to get into the World Series of Pro Mod race.

“I run NHRA. I’ll be at Indy, St. Louis and Vegas for the rest of the year now that I’ve got enough grade points, it’s been acquiring the grade points as I go,” he said.

While some of the Pro Mod racers were making their Bandimere debuts this weekend, that wasn’t the case for Bowman.

“Actually 22 years ago, I won a super Chevy race (at Bandimere), a Pro Street Super Chevy race in my own 1968 Chevelle,” Bowman said. “That’s dating me a little bit there and now I have this huge win here. This is awesome.”