Paige Coughlin has spent years forging her own path in drag racing, a sport synonymous with her family’s name. But this weekend at US 131 Motorsports Park in Martin, Michigan, Coughlin is fulfilling a lifelong dream – competing in Pro Mod – at the Shakedown at M’Town with the Mid-West Drag Racing Series.
Coughlin grew up bracket racing in classes like Super Comp and Top Dragster, then stepped into the world of No Prep Kings with her 3rd-Gen Camaro named “Golden Child.” When NPK ended, she soon found a new opportunity in a familiar place – the NHRA, which debuted a new Outlaw Street class at four national events this year.
“At the beginning of the season, we were just trying to figure out what we were gonna do,” admits Coughlin. “The Outlaw Street stuff came up, and we’re like, ‘Yeah, let’s give that a try, see how it goes.’ It was fun to kind of mix those two worlds together, especially with my family coming from the NHRA, and I’ve been the only one to kind of change it up a little bit.”
What Paige didn’t know was that her father – three-time NHRA Pro Mod world champion Troy Coughlin Sr. – was working behind the scenes to set up a partnership with 2025/26 Drag Illustrated Winter Series points champion Peter Norton and his Hurricane Motorsports team, allowing Paige to pilot Norton’s 2024 Camaro tuned by Rickie Jones. Since learning of the deal roughly a week ago, it’s been a whirlwind getting everything ready to race this weekend.
“This Pro Modified deal just came up super last minute, and I’ve been struggling to find the words to describe how all of this feels,” Coughlin says. “It’s been my dream to run Pro Modified in any way, shape, or form. My dad was a three-time NHRA Pro Modified champ, and I knew that’s what I wanted to do. I want to be just like him. When this came up, I was like, ‘Holy crap. All right, let’s go.’”
“Between my dad, Hurricane Motorsports, ProLine…we all just kind of put this together,” adds Coughlin. “We drove up from Florida, grabbed all my safety stuff in Ohio, beat on over to Indiana, poured the seat, then drove here (to US 131 Motorsports Park). It’s been a lot of work trying to get all of that work done in such a short time frame to make this race. It doesn’t even feel real. I don’t know how long they’ve been talking about it, but when I found out it was like Christmas in May.”
Coughlin also admits to feeling a bit guilty about having a “total fangirl moment” when she found out the news, as her family was having dinner to celebrate her husband Johnny Tolisano’s birthday. But the opportunity to fulfill her dream has quickly paid off. Between pre-race testing and the first qualifying session Thursday night, Coughlin laid down multiple career-best numbers. After Q1, she sits in the No. 9 spot with a 3.603 at 211.57 mph.
Qualifying for the Shakedown at M’Town continues Friday night and Saturday morning, with eliminations to follow. Coughlin’s goal is to dip into the 3.50’s and then go from there. But regardless of how things play out, she knows she’s exactly where she’s supposed to be – behind the wheel of a Pro Mod.
“This feeling of being in a Pro Modified car, it’s so hard to top that,” Coughlin says. “I’ll always have a special spot for all the other cars I’ve raced, like ‘Golden Child’. That was the first door car I ever drove. I still hold that near and dear to my heart. And my dragster I ran in Super Comp and bracket racing, that’s where I started. That’s where my family’s from, those are our roots, and you can’t forget those. But this just feels like a rite of passage, like I’m fulfilling something that I was meant to do at some time in my life, and I’m just so stoked I get to do it now.”
This story was originally published on May 29, 2026. 
