First round win signals big progress for Troy Coughlin

NHRA Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series
JEGS.com Cajun SPORTSnationals
No Problem Raceway
Belle Rose, LA
April 24th

JEG’S Mail Order
Troy Coughlin – ProMod
Race Day Summary

Troy Coughlin scored the first elimination-round win of his fledgling Pro Mod career Sunday during the fourth race of the AMS Staff Leasing Pro Mod Challenge series, which was contested at No Problem Raceway. Coughlin took out Glen Kerunsky in the Round 1 before bowing to Frankie Taylor in the quarterfinals.

A former multi-national event winner in the NHRA’s Pro Stock category, Coughlin entered race day at the second annual Jegs.com NHRA Cajun SPORTSnationals as the No. 5 qualifier after a career-best pass of 6.225 seconds at 225.94 mph in qualifying. He lined up his Jeg’s Mail Order Ford Mustang against Canadian Kerunsky and simply blew him out of the water, running a 6.266 to Kerunsky’s 6.381.

“Score that one for the crew chief,” Coughlin said. “[Kerunsky] got me at the starting line but as soon as our horsepower kicked in we caught him and passed him before we got to half-track. I’m working on my reactions times. It’s a totally different deal in these Pro Mod cars. It’s not just about dumping the clutch and mashing the gas when the lights flash. You have to have the RPM in a certain range otherwise you’ll spin the tires.”

The reaction time problem resurfaced in Round 2 when both Coughlin and Taylor left the starting line with less-than-perfect reaction times, a .111 for Taylor and a .161 for Coughlin. This time, despite the fact he ran a quicker elapsed time ‑ 6.243 to 6.260 ‑ Coughlin didn’t have enough racetrack to catch Taylor and lost by a few feet.

“Obviously the entire weekend went a helluva lot better than any weekend we’ve had this year,” Coughlin said. “We figured out what was holding us back a week ago in Las Vegas, we got the car real close to where we want it to be, we qualified great, and we won a round on race day. It’s hard to be anything but excited.

“This was a morale-boosting experience for the entire Jeg’s team. We have a good fast hot rod and our teammate, Mike Ashley, is in the finals and made up a bunch of ground on all the big guys who went out early.”

The fifth round of the AMS Staff Leasing Pro Mod Challenge takes place next weekend in Bristol, Tenn., during the fifth annual O’Reilly NHRA Thunder Valley Nationals presented by Q Power.

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