Bowe began racing at the age of sixteen in an Elfin 500 Formula Vee in 1971, winning the Tasmanian state title on debut.

The pinnacle of his Formula 5000 career was finishing runner up in the 1979 Australian Grand Prix driving one of Cooper's Chevrolet V8 powered Elfin MR8s.

After playing second fiddle to Alfredo Costanzo for several seasons, Bowe broke through for his first Australian Drivers' Championship in 1984, backing it up the following year with his second title in his Ford powered Ralt RT4 for Chris Leach.

Bowe's time of 1:33.20 for the 3.780 km (2.362 mi) track compared to the fastest Formula One race lap of the circuit that year of 1:20.78 set by Nelson Piquet driving a 1,000 bhp (746 kW; 1,014 PS) turbocharged Williams-Honda.

Bowe was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia for "significant service to motorsport as a touring car driver" in the 2021 Queen's Birthday Honours.

Bowe and the Veskanda finished second in the three round 1987 ASCC after engine reliability troubles saw him retire from the first race at a very wet Calder Park in Melbourne.

At Bathurst the turbocharged Volvo was considered the only car capable of matching the speed of the three V12 Jaguar XJS' run by Tom Walkinshaw Racing.

Prior to 1985, Bowe had never driven the Bathurst circuit and before practice started enlisted the services star driver Allan Grice to show him how to drive the track.

Bowe proved he could match it with the likes of Francevic, Peter Brock, Dick Johnson, George Fury and Jim Richards by qualifying on pole and easily leading the 5th round of the championship at Wanneroo in Perth until the new Volvo's engine went off song and forced him to retire.

He was picked up by the Peter Jackson Nissan Racing team for the 1987 endurance season, mainly as a co-driver with young sensation Glenn Seton.

Although the Nissan's won a number of touring car races in Australia during 1986 and 1987, Bowe would later claim both privately and publicly that the turbocharged 4 cyl DR30 Skyline (which had no aerodynamic aids making it very unstable at high speed) was the worst touring car he ever raced, thoughts that were echoed by regular Nissan drivers Seton and George Fury.

The race was run on the rarely used combined circuit which incorporated both the 1986 redeveloped road course and the newly completed NASCAR-style "Thunderdome" oval.

The pair salvaged a runner up position at Bathurst in the team's third entry (Bowe's ATCC Sierra) after their two primary cars failed early in the race.

DJR proved they had the fastest Group A Sierra's in the world when Dick Johnson easily won the pole by just under half a second against the best European and British opposition.

The 1989 Tooheys 1000 at Bathurst was a triumph for Bowe and Johnson, seeing off all challengers on their way to victory, including the Eggenberger built and engineered Allan Moffat Sierra's driven by European aces Klaus Niedzwiedz and Frank Biela, as well as Peter Brock's Rouse built Sierra (with Rouse himself co-driving) which Brock had put on pole position.

With the Shell Sierra limping due to failing turbo boost, Bowe drove the car over the finish line at Bathurst, saying to Channel 7 commentator Mike Raymond "Fancy doing that" over racecam as he did so.

The team continued their good form into 1995 where not even the destruction of tyre suppliers Dunlop factory in the Kobe earthquake could stop Bowe from winning the 1995 Australian Touring Car Championship, taking victories at Symmons Plains, a sprint round held at Bathurst for the first time since 1972, Winton and under terrific pressure from Glenn Seton and Peter Brock, the championship finale at Oran Park.

The team went on to win back-to-back Sandown 500s but didn't finish at Bathurst after an accident with Glenn Seton while leading stopped their run on lap 110.

Bowe also finished runner up in the 1996 Australian Touring Car Championship and Bathurst 1000 to his young rival from two years prior, Craig Lowndes.

Driving a Ferrari 458 GT3 for Maranello Motorsport alongside Craig Lowndes, Peter Edwards, and former Formula One driver Mika Salo, Bowe was the winner of the 2014 Bathurst 12 Hour on 9 February.