After a few weeks of travel to places all over the Midwest like Indiana, Texas, and Michigan, Cody Coughlin will return home to Ohio to race in front of family and friends at his home track of Columbus Motor Speedway in a race dedicated to a close family friend.
Saturday night at Columbus is the Bud St. Amant Memorial 125 for the ARCA/CRA Super Series. Coughlin is very close friends with Bud’s grandson, Jordan, as well as the whole St. Amant family.
“I’ve grown up with the whole St. Amant family,” said Coughlin, a Joe Gibbs Racing Development Driver. “Gary (Bud’s son) is like an uncle, Jordan and I are great friends, and Bud and I were very close too, so to be able to honor him with a win in the last year of this track would be huge.”
The 20-year-old Coughlin finished seventh in last year’s running of the Bud St. Amant Memorial, but he believes he can do better this year by about six more positions.
“We were very fast earlier this year at the JEGS Tour race in practice and qualifying before we got rained out,” Coughlin said. “If we have that kind of speed again, we’ll be right there fighting for a win.”
In mid-May Coughlin qualified second for the JEGS/CRA All-Stars Tour event at Columbus before heavy rain came and put an end to the night’s festivities. That race has been rescheduled for August 20.
Coughlin, the dual CRA points leader, enters Columbus on the heels of another Late Model victory, this one coming at Salem Speedway in Indiana. He now has scored four wins this year, including three-straight points-paying CRA Super Series wins (Toledo, Anderson, Baer Field) and a JEGS/CRA All-Stars Tour win (Salem).
“My crew has been doing an awesome job this year,” Coughlin said. “They’re making my job easy. Jack (Smith, crew chief) continues to impress me. He and Kevin (Hamlin, team manager), Scott (Wimmer, spotter) and Dave (Holt, crew member) have been working so hard and I can’t thank them enough. This week will be nice because not only will I have my mom (Di), dad (John) and sister (Kennedi) at the track, but also so many other family members and friends. I’m truly blessed to have all of them.”
Coughlin will hit the track on Saturday for practice at 4:20 p.m. ET, followed by qualifying at 6:20 p.m. Racing is set to begin at 7 p.m. ET at Columbus.
For more information on Cody Coughlin and Team JEGS, visit www.teamjegs.com and follow Cody on Twitter, @Cody_Coughlin. Follow Team JEGS on Twitter, @TeamJEGS, and “Like” JEGS Performance on Facebook. Also be sure to check out Cody’s new website, www.codycoughlin.com. Any other inquiries for Cody Coughlin can be sent to Bob Dillner via email at bd51sports@gmail.com.