Jim Cowan Unveils NHRA FX Class’ First COPO Camaro

Veteran NHRA sportsman drag racer Jim Cowan has embarked on a new racing venture, set to become one of the pioneers of the highly-anticipated new Factory Experimental (FX) category. Cowan, a longtime Competition Eliminator racer and chassis builder from Surprise, Arizona, has partnered with Rob Smith to build what is anticipated to be the first Chevrolet COPO Camaro in the class to hit the pavement — a goal they hope to achieve over the next few weeks.

The 71-year-old Cowan and his son, Kyle, built the entire car from the ground up at their American Racecraft shop, beginning with a collection of parts last February. The Cowan’s got to work on the project, which is owned by Smith, earlier than most, and is believed to be one of the just three cars at or near completion at this time.

“In the beginning when they first started talking about the class, what really drew Rob and I to this was that it would be heads-up racing, and that we’d be racing with a five-speed,” Cowan says. “It brought me back to the days of the Modified Production type of cars. It’s blown a little more out of proportion than that now, of course…it’s more like right in between a Pro Stock car and a Factory Stock Showdown car, in essence. But that’s really what had our interest. We’ve been running Competition Eliminator for a long time, and we had thought about doing Pro Stock, but that’s just a little beyond what Rob wanted to spend. This seemed like a good fit for us.”

“I started at the ground floor like everyone else, but elected to build a body panel car like we used to with the old Pro Stock cars. I bought all steel components, and had this thing all put together that way,” Cowan explains. “A couple of months ago I got my hands on one of the composite front ends that GM and Five Star are making, so I changed the car out to that one-piece front end, instead of having steel fenders and hood. Because of how I built the car, we’re a lot further along than most cars…Chevrolet is putting out carbon-fiber doors, and bumpers, and rockers, and a lot of customers at the bigger chassis shops are just waiting on parts. Depending on how the weight comes out, I might switch over to the carbon doors…I gutted the factory doors out, but they’re still pretty heavy.”

Smith and Cowan have tabbed former Pro Stock racer Tom Martino to build the 350 cubic-inch, Whipple-supercharged engine for the car. “Tom started doing our Comp engines about three years…