First day in Memphis a tough one for Coughlin

MEMPHIS (Sept. 14) -- Pro Stock driver Jeg Coughlin Jr. is a cheerful fellow by nature, but even the good-natured 37-year-old from Delaware, Ohio, has to admit he was hoping for bigger things in the opening day of professional qualifying for the 20th annual Mid-South NHRA Nationals.

Coughlin started the day with a mid-pack run of 6.748 seconds at 204.73 mph to place his JEGS.com Chevrolet Cobalt securely in the No. 9 position in the field. The run set the table for a big push under the lights Friday night, when historically the best runs of the weekend are recorded.

But, although he managed to lower his previous time, Coughlin's only slightly improved 6.736 at 204.94 mph dropped him to 12th overall as three others managed to move around him on the ladder.

"This class can be humbling at times," said Coughlin, one of only 11 racers in history with 50 national event wins. "You can be off by a fraction and it looks like a mile on the time sheet. When a field of 16 cars is separated by four hundredths of a second, it's very, very close racing. Any hiccup is magnified.

"There's a little bug we need to find in the set-up. We've already had a team meeting and the guys have elected to stay up all night if necessary to figure this car out. The good news is that our teammate Dave Connolly is the No. 1 qualifier with the exact same tune-up so we know where we need to be."

A two-time winner at Memphis Motorsports Park, Coughlin will now have two more chances to move up the sheets in Saturday's final two qualifiers.

"From what I understand there is a cool front coming through and tomorrow's sessions should be great," Coughlin said. "We need to be ready to take full advantage of this opportunity because it doesn't come along very often where Saturday's runs are better than the Friday night one. It should be exciting."