Troy Coughlin, Jr. and the Elite Motorsports team pulled off one of the all-time-great drag-racing coups at the Dodge//SRT NHRA Nationals at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and executed to near-perfection, effectively pressing the reset button on the Pro Stock championship chase.

Greg Anderson entered the penultimate race of the season with an 81-point advantage over Erica Enders in his quest for a fifth NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series title, forcing Enders’ Elite camp to go on the defense. Utilizing a perfectly-legal strategy, team drivers Coughlin and Aaron Stanfield and the loosely-associated Christian Cuadra all secured positions in the bottom of the field early in qualifying, and if there were any question as to their intentions, all three drivers shut their cars off early and coasted in the final qualifier to maintain their numbers 14, 15, and 16 positions on the qualified ladder. This was a convenient setup, given that KB Racing-powered cars of Kyle Koretsky, Anderson, Dallas Glenn, and Matt Hartford held the top four slots going into that final session.

Anderson, with a lap of 6.655-seconds at 205.49 mph, leapfrogged Koretsky in that last session to claim the top spot and a date with Coughlin in round one. Enders, perhaps through strategy, luck, or a little of both, moved up two spots in the order, from seventh to fifth, with a 6.690, putting her on the same side of the ladder as Coughlin and Anderson.

“I know what it’s capable of, it’s capable of running very fast and Troy is capable of cutting a hell of a light,” Anderson said of his scheduled match with Coughlin after taking over the number one qualifying spot Saturday afternoon. “I know it’s going to be a heck of a challenge, but that’s the way it should be. That’s a lot of pressure. We’re not even at Pomona yet but the pressure is already through the roof. I love it. I guess I started this deal and I’m glad to be a part of it on the other end this time,” he added, referring to the qualifying gamesmanship his KB Racing squad has deployed in past seasons.

This team is a family and we all know how it works at this point in the season. – Troy Coughlin, Jr.

Taking into account qualifying bonus points he’d accumulated, Anderson had increased his lead in the standings to 92 by raceday, making an upset by Coughlin a virtual necessity to keep Enders’ title hopes alive.

And did he ever deliver.

In the next-to-last pair of the round, with Enders sitting in the water-box watching on, Coughlin strapped an .022 to .043 reaction time advantage on Anderson and had just enough steam to hold him off by the narrowest of margins — 0.0012-seconds, or about 4-inches — in a 6.668 to a losing 6.648 contest. In six prior matchups, Coughlin had never beaten Anderson, and as far as team owner Richard Freeman was concerned, he chose the perfect time to start evening out the score.

Anderson took the defeat in stride, promising to fight on at Pomona despite the setback.

“It’s very disappointing. I didn’t get the job done today, son of a gun,” he said after the hoelshot loss. “My HendrickCars.com Chevrolet was great, but the driver wasn’t quite good enough. They did what they meant to do, but I’m not giving up. I won’t ever give up. I don’t hear anybody singing just yet. I can’t control what the other teams do, but I can do my absolute best to gain as many points as possible – and we did that in qualifying.”

“We did what we came here to do,” Coughlin commented. “That was a huge round, no doubt, and racing a world champion like Greg Anderson with so much on the line definitely got the adrenaline going. We had a quick start and held on to win by a very close margin. It worked out perfectly.”

Enders then defeated another fellow Elite car, that of Bo Butner, in her first round match, followed by Hartford in round two. Coughlin, for his part, ousted Deric Kramer in the second round, setting up a semifinal squaring-off between he and Enders. There, the formidable duo knocked out identical .016 reaction times and Coughlin was quicker at every marker and edging ahead when his car suddenly went silent past 1,000-feet, allowing Enders to power on to the final round.

Enders was quick to deny any team orders for Coughlin, and in Elite’s defense, Stanfield was green-lighted (no pun intended) to take her out on a holeshot in Dallas (a race she also desperately needed to win, and that Anderson did win), so viewers are free to make their own determination. Coughlin, however, seemed a bit more transparent about the gameplan.

“This team is a family and we all know how it works at this point in the season,” Coughlin said. “It happened the other way around in the past with the same teams involved so now we’ll take these results and head to Pomona to see how it ends.”

Anderson will enter the Auto Club Finals in Pomona with a lead of 32 points, or just over one round of racing, over Enders.

KB Racing claimed Halloween’s last treat, however, as Dallas Glenn posted a psychic .001 reaction time in the final and drove away from Enders, 6.660 to 6.684, to earn his third career Pro Stock victory. But the gamble in Las Vegas, which came together better than the Elite camp could have possibly imagined it, trimmed Anderson’s lead to just 32 points going into the season finale in Pomona. There, with points and a half on the line, each round is worth 30 points, and so each and every qualifying session and position will be key.

Say what you will of gamesmanship among teams and manipulation of outcomes, what went down this weekend in Las Vegas brought more attention and excitement to Pro Stock than any other moment all season. And while you hate to see it come at anyone’s expense, this sport is as much about entertainment as it is competition, and without both, the NHRA may not exist. Now, a championship fight awaits at Pomona that’s sure to be worth the price of admission — take in what you saw in Las Vegas and decide if you’re Team Greg or Team Erica.