NORWALK, Ohio (July 4) – Troy Coughlin and younger brother Jeg Coughlin Jr. led a quintet of JEGS.com race cars by both qualifying No. 6 in their respective classes on Friday at Norwalk.
Their brother Mike qualified No. 9 in Top Sportsman, while T.J. Coughlin – Troy's son – won in Round 1 in both Super Gas and Super Comp.
"We've got a lot of yellow and black out here," Jeg Coughlin said. "It's exciting to see Troy Jr. turning on some win lights this morning already. I got to watch Mike run, and I don't get to see that as often as I like. And Troy is No. 6, too, so we had a good first day. We're looking forward to Day 2 and beyond."
Troy Coughlin's pass of 5.962 seconds at 249.90 mph, in the second qualifying session Friday, put him No. 6 with his JEGS.com Corvette in the NHRA Pro Mod Drag Racing Series event presented by Mid Atlantic Energy Service.
"(Crew chief) Steve (Petty) and the guys took the car to a race last weekend and raced it in a Pro Mod event," Coughlin said. "They fixed a couple things broken on the car, and things that weren't straight, they put back in line where the car was. He came out here and said, 'It should run 5.95, 5.96.' and that's what it ran. It always floors me when it comes and tells me what it's going to run.
"He and Mike Rees, Bryan Metzenhiem and Kyle Pettis did a great job, for sure. I'm glad to see this thing start running well again because they have put a lot of effort and labor to get the JEGS.com car to come around."
Coughlin has one more round of qualifying Saturday, with the first round of eliminations also on Saturday.
Jeg Coughlin's Pro Stock Dodge made a top pass of 6.554 seconds at 212.03 mph that also had him No. 6. That run was an .035-second improvement over his Q1 pass.
"Not a bad Day 1," Coughlin said. "It's not really what we thought we'd run this evening. The left lane was giving nearly all the teams trouble in that first session, and we went .58 down that lane the first time. We knew with the sun going down, it was going to equalize the lanes pretty good, and it did.
"The second run, we let the clutch out, and the tire hooked real hard. It stood the front end up and worked itself pretty hard on the wheelie bars. It was unloading one of the tires, driving it hard left. There was a split second where I thought, 'Man, this isn't going to make it.'
"But I was able to get it into second and then quickly into third, and it calmed a little bit, though it walked around a little the rest of the track. We saw a lot of guys loose on the top end of the track that round. Not a bad start. There are only five happier going into Day 2, and I definitely feel like we'll improve to the pack tomorrow."
T.J. Coughlin faces Steven Fields in the second round of Super Gas and Eric Manuel in the second round of Super Comp on Saturday.
Mike Coughlin's best pass was 6.664 seconds at 211.79 mph in Top Sportsman.