Staggered By Two DNQs, Jeg Coughlin Rebounds With Productive Test

Before he started his own National Hot Rod Association career, Jeg Coughlin Jr. watched older brothers John, Troy, and Mike drag race.

Even at age 13 or 14, he noticed that they would discard their elapsed-time slips.

“A lot of times you’d find the time slip crumpled up in the corner,” the four-time Pro Stock and 1992 Super Gas champion said. “I’d find myself unraveling it and checking it out and seeing why something happened — and then trying to spin it around, saying, ‘How could that run have turned out to our benefit?’ Whether you won the round or lost the round, there’s a lot of information there.”

So Jeg Coughlin, who’s nothing if not meticulous, has gone on the offense following his second failure to qualify this season. And he said he thinks Houston, where he DNQ’ed last weekend at the O’Reilly Spring Nationals with his JEGS.com/Mopar Dodge Avenger, just might be where he turns around his new program.

His preparation for this weekend’s Summit Southern Nationals at Atlanta Dragway started back at Royal Purple Raceway at Baytown, Texas, Saturday night.

“We had a team meeting Saturday night, and we all decided to stay and test Monday in Houston,” Coughlin said. “Jerry Haas, who built the car, and Adam Lambert from Penske stayed with us to help. We basically decided to start the test with a clean sheet of paper and see what we could do.”

(Never too far from the drawing board is “Pop” Jeg Coughlin Sr., who always is standing by with sage advice. “He’s probably the most valuable crew chief out there,” his son said. “It’d be hard for money to buy that. He doesn’t get ruffled that often. He’s very prepared, very logical. He has been instrumental in my achievements.”)

The JEGS team went over the small-but-key details, deciding to focus on improving the launch and concentrating on the suspension, shocks, springs, and weight transfer. Despite a less-than-ideal racing surface at that point, Coughlin said he saw improvement.

“We started with 1.02-second 60-foot times and progressively got better each run, which was really encouraging,” he said. “The track was deteriorating a bit from race day, but we still learned a bunch that I think we’ll be able to take with us to Atlanta. I’m hoping we will look back at this test at some point in the future and say, ‘That’s where it all started.’ ”

Seeking his 53rd Pro Stock victory and 69th overall in NHRA competition, Coughlin said this latest go-’round in the class has been an eye-opener.

“It has taken a little more time than I would have guessed. Having a brand-new team (except for engine gurus Roy Simmons and Nick Ferri), we expected some adversity, but I’ll admit it’s been tougher than I thought it would be,” Coughlin said. “But we’ve learned a lot about ourselves and this team.”

Before Coughlin traveled to Houston, he was trying to shake a DNQ at Gainesville — the third race of the season — that seemed especially baffling in light of his runner-up finish at the Winternationals at Pomona, Calif., that opened the 2012 Full Throttle Drag Racing Series tour.

His strategy at that point, he said, was “don’t screw with what we did well and fine-tune what we didn’t do well.”

In general, Coughlin said, “There are literally dozens and dozens of opportunities you have to maintain your Pro Stock car for the next run. There might be 60 things on the checklist. And probably 80 percent of the time, it’s going to be these five [crucial parts in play] and the other 20 percent it’s going to be these 55. You typically spend most of your time on the five it’s likely going to be. The 80 / 20 rule definitely is in effect. The Pro Stock car is a huge Rubik’s cube, no question about it.”

So, too, is this situation in which he has found himself. A mediocre 4-4 elimination-round record that includes a couple of first-round defeats is about as distasteful to him as a dirty, cluttered room in his house. It’s totally out of character for a racer who has a 477-222 career mark and has won more Pro Stock rounds than anyone but Bob Glidden, Warren Johnson, and Greg Anderson (who have a combined total of  20 championships).

“Everyone on the team has won multiple championships,” Coughlin said, “so we’re used to getting better results. They’ll come. We just need to be patient.

“We’re getting our program up to speed,” he said. “We haven’t shown a lot of brilliance with our performance on the track. But our goal is to put together a team capable of representing our company, challenging for race wins, and challenging for the Full Throttle Pro Stock championship. Those are pretty high-end goals, and I feel like we’ve been successful at that model.”

The ultra-competitive Coughlin even competes with himself, saying, “Our goal is to meet and exceed those goals. We need to be falling into our groove. That’s what it’s going to take to get in this championship.”

He needs to make big strides but recognizes that involves baby steps again. So right now, he’ll be content to make the show at Atlanta, where he won in 2000 and 2010.