Usually 40 will represent an over-the-hill number, but for 38-year old Jeg Coughlin Jr. the number stood for so much more.

Coughlin secured his 40th national event victory by defeating teammate Dave Connolly in the Pro Stock final round. The win put Coughlin all alone in fourth place in the all-time list for Pro Stock victories, a remarkable accomplishment for a 38-year-old racer.

"We've been flirting with a win for awhile now and it feels wonderful to get it done," Coughlin said. "The main thing is we want to carry momentum into Indy and then the playoffs and there's no better way to build up momentum than to go out there and turn the win light on. Great work by the entire JEGS.com Chevrolet Cobalt team." Usually 40 will represent an over-the-hill number, but for 38-year old Jeg Coughlin Jr. the number stood for so much more.

Coughlin secured his 40th national event victory by defeating teammate Dave Connolly in the Pro Stock final round. The win put Coughlin all alone in fourth place in the all-time list for Pro Stock victories, a remarkable accomplishment for a 38-year-old racer.

"We've been flirting with a win for awhile now and it feels wonderful to get it done," Coughlin said. "The main thing is we want to carry momentum into Indy and then the playoffs and there's no better way to build up momentum than to go out there and turn the win light on. Great work by the entire JEGS.com Chevrolet Cobalt team."

Combined with his 13 national event victories in the Sportsman ranks, Coughlin now has 53 Wally trophies, the 10th most in the 57-year history of NHRA drag racing.

This win took some work as Coughlin started the day as the No. 11 qualifier and was never quick enough to have the advantage of lane choice until the final round when, as it turned out, he didn't need it. Nevertheless, he beat veteran Vieri Gaines, two-time champion Jim Yates, and POWERade title contender Kurt Johnson to reach his 65th career Pro Stock final.

"I started the day thinking we had a top-five car but the race against V., I'll tell ya, he gave us all we could handle," Coughlin said. "We were like the 14th quickest of the round and we only beat V. by two-thousandths of a second, but to get a break like that really lifted us up. It set the tone for the day."

Coughlin won when Connolly left the starting line too early.

The red-light start by Connolly, who joined Coughlin and others in the playoff field with his runner-up finish, was Coughlin's second gift-wrapped win of the day. Semifinal foe Kurt Johnson also fouled out by -.004 seconds.

"I don't know if my rep had much to do with it," Coughlin said, when asked by the media if his reputation on the starting line may have spooked his rivals into red-lighting. "I haven't exactly been sawing the tree down lately. It's more likely that we won because we did the best job, as a team, of adapting to the racetrack throughout the day.

"We want to win our fifth championship this year and the closer we are to the No. 1 spot when the playoffs start, the better it will be. We moved up to third today and we could mathematically get as high as second in Indy, so that's what we'll try to do. We've been talking about getting that look back in our eye and I think we did that a little bit today."