Jeg Coughlin Jr. has competed in the NHRA Pro Stock ranks for 20 years, winning five world championships.

That experience was evident during qualifying for the NHRA Four-Wide Nationals at zMax Dragway.

Adjusting to the hot and humid conditions in Charlotte, Coughlin secured his second straight No. 1  spot based off a 6.578-second pass at 210.24-mph pass Friday. Coughlin admitted that a victory under the unique four-wide setup would have a special place in his memory bank.

“It’s vacant in my resume, if you want to say it quite bluntly,” Coughlin said. “I’ve grown up watching and experiencing two-lane racing.”

Coughlin said he has been intrigued by the unique quad format at Charlotte since he flipped through a scrapbook that his mom has been keeping since the early 1970s. Some of the images included Coughlin’s father, Jeg Sr., racing four-wide in the 1960s at Dragway 42 in Elyria, Ohio.

“It’s very prestigious to win the Four-Wide events here,” Coughlin said. “We’ve had a handful of them now and it would be very exciting to add our name to that list.  We’ve got three rounds Sunday to get it done.”

Coughlin’s Elite Motorsports teammate Erica Enders qualified a season-best second with a run of 6.583 seconds. Current Pro Stock points leader and two-time Four-Wide Nationals winner Greg Anderson, earned the No. 3 spot based off his 6.587 run on Friday. Chris McGaha relied on a new engine to earn his best starting spot of the season at No. 4.  

It was the 22nd career top qualifying spot for Coughlin, who has 58 career wins. Coughlin explained that early in his career he had to rely on creativity and talent to conquer the masters of horsepower.

“Quite honestly, when I first came into Pro Stock we had Warren Johnson and Jim Yates running up front by a pretty good margin,” Coughlin said. “We were able to snag quite a few wins in those first couple years. We won it in the pits with crafty crew chief calls and we won it on the track with driving.”

With the power of Elite Performance and the wisdom of crew chief Mark Ingersoll, Coughlin said he has a winning formula.

“We’ve never really had a car that was consistently capable of qualifying on the pole,” Coughlin said. “We’ve got two already this year. I’d love nothing more to keep that same craftiness in the pits and see if I can’t bring out some of that caginess behind the wheel and turn on some win lights Sunday.”

Due to the heat, few drivers showed improvement during Saturday’s two sessions.

On his third qualifying pass of the weekend, Coughlin compiled three bonus points for posting the quickest elapsed time at 6.600.

“We were just working on consistency,” Coughlin said. “The air was actually about the same as it was during Q1 on Friday, but it was much warmer.”

Vincent Nobile and Greg Anderson shut off their cars early after encountering tire shake. Coughlin went 6.627 in the final session, but he still held on the top spot. Bo Butner collected a bonus for leading the qualifying session with a run 6.604.

 “Our goal today was try to remain No. 1 in the field and then also finish No. 1 in both of the sessions,” Coughlin said. “We were just a little too aggressive in Q4. We spun the tires real hard and lost quite a bit of ET. We still ran a 6.62, which I was pretty happy with. This puts us in a good position to be set up for game day Sunday.”

Perhaps the most interesting first-round quad will involve rookie Tanner Gray and Alex Laughlin, who became involved in a heated dispute along with their crews after last week’s event in Houston.

The 17-year-old Gray, who qualified seventh Saturday, made NHRA history on April 2 in Las Vegas when he became the youngest NHRA pro winner.
Coughlin, who has been able to adapt to adjust with the rules, stars and engine wars in the Pro Stock class, said he’s hungry for another championship.

“Things have changed just a little bit on the technology side, and there are fewer teams building engines,” he said. “We’ve got a great group of 16 cars here, and 12 of those are really strong. It’s going to take quite an effort to get it all done this season. We’re really looking forward to the summer months because that’s where this team is very good.”