NHRA Pro Stock veteran Troy Coughlin Jr. was perfect on Saturday night at Bandimere Speedway in Morrison, Colo.
Coughlin posted a perfect .000 reaction time to go with a run of 6.949 seconds at 196.42 mph in his JEGS.com Chevrolet Camero to top Aaron Stanfield in the final of the Mission #2Fast2Tasty NHRA Challenge. It was Coughlin’s second win of the season in the specialty race. He also won earlier this season at Phoenix.
Coughlin qualified fourth for Sunday’s eliminations at the Mile-High Nationals at Bandimere Speedway in Morrison, Colo., near Denver. His Elite Motorsports teammate Erica Enders earned the top qualifying spot.
Coughlin, who won the season-opener at Phoenix, is fourth in the championship points and hopes Saturday’s Challenge win will set him up for a big day on Sunday.
“Being triple-zero, that’s not something I’m really set up to be,” Coughlin said. “It’s fun, don’t get me wrong—it’s a cool stat afterwards. But when it clouds up, you just get in there and you can really crush the tree.
“Winning this gets you into race mode. You win and it’s exciting, but you almost have to get over it pretty quickly and get back into race mode just like you were this morning. You really have to know when to turn it on and turn it off. It’s mental toughness, but that’s exciting.”
Mike Pryson covered auto racing for the Jackson (Mich.) Citizen Patriot and MLive Media Group from 1991 until joining Autoweek in 2011. He won several Michigan Associated Press and national Associated Press Sports Editors awards for auto racing coverage and was named the 2000 Michigan Auto Racing Fan Club’s Michigan Motorsports Writer of the Year. A Michigan native, Mike spent three years after college working in southwest Florida before realizing that the land of Disney and endless summer was no match for the challenge of freezing rain, potholes and long, cold winters in the Motor City.
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