NHRA Pro Mod - Troy Coughlin Produces Strong Qualifying Effort But Round 1 Loss

NORWALK, June 26, 2011: Having reached the full potential with the turbocharged, small-block engine in his JEGS.com Pontiac, Troy Coughlin looks to a future with a new racecar for the Get Screened America Pro Mod Drag Racing Series.

Coughlin fell in the first round of Pro Mod action Saturday night at Norwalk after making a nice pass of 6.098 seconds at 240.38 mph. But No. 5 qualifier Dennis Radford simply had a better racecar, going 5.974 seconds at 236.96 mph.

"Dennis is doing a really good job with their program," Coughlin said. "He's fast, and he's consistently fast. We're good friends, so if I can't win, I'd like to see him do well."

Coughlin and the JEGS.com Pro Mod team will turn to a new '68 Camaro with a turbocharged 540 cubic inch engine for the next race, Sept. 3-5, at the Mac Tools U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis.

"We’ve got two months now to concentrate on the new car," Coughlin said. "The guys are going to take a vacation, and then we'll try and get it together in a couple weeks. We'll come back full force and get the new car done."

Coughlin and the JEGS.com have another engine they want to try in the current car to help compare the combination with the new car.

"We'll go test all this stuff to see what the best combination is," Coughlin said. "We should have quite a bit more power with the new engine. It should hopefully be a substantial change in power. I'm excited to go try it out."

Coughlin enjoyed a "home" game this weekend, as JEGS' headquarters is not too far away in Delaware, Ohio. But additional family, friends, and co-workers brings added pressure, and Coughlin needed a good second-round qualifying run to make the show. He did that with a 5.990-second run at 247.97 mph pass.

"It's a lot more pressure," Coughlin said. "Obviously, you want to win, but you've got to qualify before you can win. These Team JEGS guys were thrashing all week, fixing this and that and some wire problems we had at the last race. We're making good strides.

"To come here, this is kind of a home race for us. We've got a lot of associates from JEGS and a lot of family and friends. You really want to do well all the time, but it's kind of cool when you do well when your family and friends and people you work with are with you.

"All the guys working on this car crossed the T's and dotted the I's, and we got it from Point A to Point B. It was good enough to get in, just not enough to win."