Donnie Bowles can add another item to his growing list of accomplishments as he became the first driver on the Roush Drag Team to take one of the liquid propane-powered Mustangs to a victory.
Bowles win came during the August 29 elimination rounds of the fourth Annual NMCA Muscle Car Nationals at Milan Dragway in Michigan. It took six rounds in total for Bowles to seal the win against Adam Samfilippo. His run of 10.580 at 121.00 mph was just 0.06-seconds higher than his breakout which captured the win by a scant 0.01-second.
“It was very satisfying to get the first win for the Roush Powered by Propane Drag Team.My teammate, Susan Roush-McClenaghan, and I have both gone to final rounds this year, but haven’t quite been able to close the deal until this weekend at Milan.It required a total team effort, as we faced our share of challenges on Sunday.”
Bowles currently leads the NMCA Open Comp point standings with his ’05 Roush Stage 3 Mustang, which was converted during the off-season to run on liquid propane. This car, along with a ’10 Stage 3 driven by teammate Susan Roush-McClenaghan, are an offshoot of the kits that Roush Performance uses to convert gasoline-powered Ford pickups and vans to run on clean-burning propane.
Both cars use an all-aluminum 5.4L engine that was originally designed for the Ford GT supercar. This engine is naturally-aspirated with a 12.5:1 compression ratio. Several other changes were required to run on liquid propane, including CNC-ported cylinder heads, high performance camshaft and valvetrain, and a wet sump lubrication system, all of which helps these liquid propane-power engines to generate in excess of 700 horsepower.
Despite popular misconceptions, propane is actually very safe to use as a motor fuel and has a significantly lower flammability than gasoline. It is also good in cool or hot weather making it ideal for motorsports applications. Propane is the third most popular motor fuel (behind gasoline and diesel), and there are already more than 12 million propane-fueled vehicles on roads across the world. As a green fuel, on average propane fleet vehicles reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 19 percent and create 20 percent fewer nitrogen oxides, up to 60 percent less carbon monoxide, and fewer particulate emissions, as compared to gasoline.