{"id":103742,"date":"2026-05-29T21:44:06","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T21:44:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/drag-racing\/uncategorized\/paige-coughlin-fulfilling-her-dream-competing-in-pro-mod-this-weekend-at-shakedown-at-mtown\/"},"modified":"2026-05-29T21:44:06","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T21:44:06","slug":"paige-coughlin-fulfilling-her-dream-competing-in-pro-mod-this-weekend-at-shakedown-at-mtown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/drag-racing\/uncategorized\/paige-coughlin-fulfilling-her-dream-competing-in-pro-mod-this-weekend-at-shakedown-at-mtown\/","title":{"rendered":"Paige Coughlin Fulfilling Her Dream, Competing in Pro Mod this Weekend at Shakedown at M\u2019Town"},"content":{"rendered":"

Paige Coughlin has spent years forging her own path in drag racing, a sport synonymous with her family\u2019s name. But this weekend at US 131 Motorsports Park in Martin, Michigan, Coughlin is fulfilling a lifelong dream \u2013 competing in Pro Mod \u2013 at the Shakedown at M\u2019Town with the Mid-West Drag Racing Series.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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 \u201cGolden Child.\u201d When NPK ended, she soon found a new opportunity in a familiar place \u2013 the NHRA, which debuted a new Outlaw Street class at four national events this year.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the beginning of the season, we were just trying to figure out what we were gonna do,\u201d admits Coughlin. \u201cThe Outlaw Street stuff came up, and we\u2019re like, \u2018Yeah, let\u2019s give that a try, see how it goes.\u2019 It was fun to kind of mix those two worlds together, especially with my family coming from the NHRA, and I\u2019ve been the only one to kind of change it up a little bit.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

What Paige didn\u2019t know was that her father \u2013 three-time NHRA Pro Mod world champion Troy Coughlin Sr. \u2013 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\u2019s 2024 Camaro tuned by Rickie Jones. Since learning of the deal roughly a week ago, it\u2019s been a whirlwind getting everything ready to race this weekend.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"
Rick Belden photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThis Pro Modified deal just came up super last minute, and I\u2019ve been struggling to find the words to describe how all of this feels,\u201d Coughlin says. \u201cIt\u2019s 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\u2019s what I wanted to do. I want to be just like him. When this came up, I was like, \u2018Holy crap. All right, let\u2019s go.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cBetween my dad, Hurricane Motorsports, ProLine\u2026we all just kind of put this together,\u201d adds Coughlin. \u201cWe 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\u2019s 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\u2019t even feel real. I don\u2019t know how long they\u2019ve been talking about it, but when I found out it was like Christmas in May.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coughlin also admits to feeling a bit guilty about having a \u201ctotal fangirl moment\u201d when she found out the news, as her family was having dinner to celebrate her husband Johnny Tolisano\u2019s 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Qualifying for the Shakedown at M\u2019Town continues Friday night and Saturday morning, with eliminations to follow. Coughlin\u2019s goal is to dip into the 3.50\u2019s and then go from there. But regardless of how things play out, she knows she\u2019s exactly where she\u2019s supposed to be \u2013 behind the wheel of a Pro Mod.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis feeling of being in a Pro Modified car, it\u2019s so hard to top that,\u201d Coughlin says. \u201cI\u2019ll always have a special spot for all the other cars I\u2019ve raced, like \u2018Golden Child\u2019. 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\u2019s where I started. That\u2019s where my family\u2019s from, those are our roots, and you can\u2019t forget those. But this just feels like a rite of passage, like I\u2019m fulfilling something that I was meant to do at some time in my life, and I\u2019m just so stoked I get to do it now.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

This story was originally published on May 29, 2026. \"Drag<\/p>\n

The post Paige Coughlin Fulfilling Her Dream, Competing in Pro Mod this Weekend at Shakedown at M\u2019Town<\/a> first appeared on Drag Illustrated<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Paige Coughlin has spent years forging her own path in drag racing, a sport synonymous with her family\u2019s name. But this weekend at US 131 Motorsports Park in Martin, Michigan, Coughlin is fulfilling a lifelong dream \u2013 competing in Pro Mod \u2013 at the Shakedown at M\u2019Town with the Mid-West Drag Racing Series.\u00a0 Coughlin grew […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-103742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103742"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103742\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}