HIGHWAY 95 hadn't seen anything quite like it since Smokey And The Bandit writes BRIAN DOOGAN.

High-powered vehicles being chased by high-powered cop cars intent on booking the speeding sons of ... yeee-haa!

Except - well, except what exactly did the venerable officers from the Las Vegas Highway Patrol and their 'pardners' all the way north to Alaska expect?

This was a cotton-pickin' rally race after all.

"They were on every corner with their speed guns and we're trying to get to Alaska as quickly as we can!" recalled Mark Bowie, managing director of Vantage Vauxhall in Burnley who, with co-driver Peter Swire, participated and triumphed in the recent 12,000km, 26-day Panama-Alaska rally, a supreme test of car and manpower.

"It was incredible. I think they handed out 20 fixed penalty fines one day."

Suffice to say these same cops would have had a field day a fortnight ago at Silverstone - Goddarnit, Horace, there's another of them there speedsters, go get 'em.

'Rhinestone Kops' were not the biggest of Bowie's problems, even though he did pick up two tickets - duly paid - himself.

The terrain, though beautiful, was treacherous.

In Mexico three of the vehicles hit cows while a vulture crashed through the windscreen of another.

Just two days into their trek, a Land Rover Discovery went off the road and plummeted into a 40-foot deep ravine.

And one of the cars in the accompanying Historic Rally - for pre-1970 vehicles - plunged 100 feet after hitting a bump on the road. By good fortune its passengers survived.

"Through Central America it was all tropical, rainforest area - potholes were a foot deep!" explained Mark.

"We saw landslides, places where the roads had virtually been washed away.

"And we had to travel up mountains often blanketed by mist.

"I realised then there was a danger to what we were doing."

That was unlikely to deter him.

It didn't. His name might be a byword for danger. He seems the type of guy with whom you could step straight into the jungle to wrestle the alligators or go meat hunting with the Lumumba boys.

Then a hop, skip and jump - or multi-thousand mile inter-continental rally - would take you to the Caribbean where you sense the pirhanas and Great Whites might be in for more than they bargained for.

Finally, you could forget it all over a long, hot mug of Bovril ... on top of Mount Everest or some other little hump on the landscape.

Ben Nevis? Nah, that's for sissies.

Yeah, Mark Bowie is an all-action guy.

Subaqua (underwater sports) and parachute jumping are prominent among his hobbies.

He also took lessons for his pilot's license but gave up having already flown solo.

"I enjoy doing 'different' things," said Mark, whose assimiliation back into 'normal' life has been made less anti-climactic by the happiness he shares with wife Debbie and their two sons, Richard and Paul, and also the countryside around his Clitheroe home which he maintains rivals anything Alaska, Panama or any of the eight countries in between had to offer.

"I don't live constantly on the edge.

"But I like a challenge, such as the Panama-Alaska was.

"Initially, the challenge was to finish. Out of 24 who started, only seven did.

"Halfway through we realised we could win. From that point on all we wanted to do was win.

"But to do that you need to finish so that was always the overriding factor."

Crucial as well was their not acquiring any penalty points, this despite towing a distressed crew in a Mustang 50 miles into Calgary.

Late check-ins at the various time control stations meant teams were not considered for the major prizes.

On the last 600 km leg into Anchorage, Alaska, the Frontera team passed the finish line and clocked in with a mere two minutes to spare to complete 25 separate days and 70 time controls without road penalties.

Out of the entire field, only one other team emerged without penalties. Within seven days of the rally's start everyone else had, which gives some indication of their achievement.

"The day after the rally finished four of us hired a light plane and flew up onto a glacier" remembered Bowie. "We had a snowball fight. I think it was the sheer relief of having finished.

"That night we went fishing and I caught my first salmon.

"It was the perfect end to the perfect trip."

It says much about Bowie that the perfect climax to such an adventure was the tranquility of the river as opposed to the adrenaline rush of finishing the rally. For his his daredevil tendencies, there is an unmistakeable inner calm about him. He is at peace with the world and he likes to let you know it.

"We have 20 acres of land at our home and there is nothing I enjoy more than getting on the tractor in the evening and cutting the grass" he says in a quiet yet forthright tone.

"It's very relaxing, therapeutic. It leaves me without a care in the world.

"Debbie is into horses. She has two Welsh cobs, one of whom is in foal.

"I hate them. One end bites and the other kicks.

"But we each pursue our own interests which I think is good. It's a necessity. It gets you away from it all."

As a youngster growing up in Altrincham, the most dangerous thing he did was turn up to school with his sums not done. He wasn't particularly adventurous.

His father, John, owned the local Vauxhall dealership and Mark joined the company before expanding the business to the point where he now runs five dealerships, in Burnley, Bury, Bacup, Colne and Clitheroe.

Cars, then, have been his life which explains his professional satisfaction - as well as the deep feeling of self-accomplishment - at winning the Panama-Alaska.

"The Frontera didn't let us down once which will be a bit of a blow to the likes of Jeremy Clarkson, the Top Gear presenter, who likes to slag it off for lack of headroom or whatever" said Bowie. "But I am sure there's not a car around that could fit his head in anyway."

So he would do the rally again tomorrow, I inquired before leaving.

He smiled and concluded: "Maybe next week."

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.