Troy Coughlin raced to his first victory of the 2016 season on Sunday during the NHRA J&A Service Pro Mod Drag Racing Series portion of the NHRA Summernationals. This weekend’s Pro Mod racing is the fourth of 10 events on the 2016 season.
Coughlin, making his first final round appearance of 2016, powered his JEGS.com late model Corvette to a 5.878-second pass at 255.29 mph to defeat Bill Glidden’s 7.320 at 137.92 in his Mickey Thompson Ford Mustang.
“What a day,” Coughlin said. “For the whole JEGS.com team, coming into this race fifth in points and with a race car that’s a competitor, it’s great to get this win. We’ve just had a couple burdens here and there, but (crew chief) Steve (Petty) got it fixed up, and Mike (Rees) and Kyle (Pettis) put it together. We had a good hot rod all race. I’m pretty excited about it, for sure.”
This is Coughlin’s seventh career victory. He qualified seventh and raced past Mike Janis, two-time 2016 winner Rickie Smith, who exited the starting line and did not make a pass due to a problem with his dragster, and Steve Matusek en route to the victory. He is now second in the points standings behind Smith.
Glidden, the No. 13 qualifier, outlasted Bob Rahaim, Khalid alBalooshi and Jim Whiteley in the earlier rounds. Glidden is eighth in the points standings.
Matusek is third in the standings, Michael Biehle is fourth and Danny Rowe is fifth.
The NHRA J&A Service Pro Mod Drag Racing Series will make its fifth appearance of the 2016 season at the NHRA Thunder Valley Nationals, June 17-19, at Bristol Dragway in Bristol, Tenn.
This story was originally published on June 13, 2016.