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<\/p>\nAfter rain postponed eliminations at the Dodge NHRA Great Lakes Nationals at 131 Motorsports Park to Monday, Troy Coughlin Jr. and the JEGS Pro Stock team earned their first win of the season and the fifth for Elite Motorsports in 2026.<\/p>\n
Troy Jr. handled the JEGS Pro Stock machine to a 6.515-second pass at 209.69 mph to defeat points leader Matt Hartford\u2019s 6.527 pass at 208.14 for his first win since the NHRA New England Nationals in 2024, 41 races ago. It is Troy Jr.\u2019s sixth professional Pro Stock victory.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is extremely exciting. Lots of emotions. I love the history of drag racing, it\u2019s something that\u2019s in my blood and I\u2019ve always been pretty romantic about,\u201d said Troy Jr. who moves to fifth in points. \u201cTo celebrate the 75th year of NHRA and get this special diamond Wally is pretty majestic considering all of the legendary names who have earned Wally\u2019s the past 75 years. I\u2019m very humbled.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody at Elite Motorsports, from top to bottom, they work extremely hard. They work themselves to exhaustion to give us the best that they can be, and the best individuals they can be, and it bleeds into the driver\u2019s seat,\u201d Troy Jr. continued. \u201cI have so much faith and trust in Kyle Bates, Kelley Murphy, Alex Laine, Steven Hurley, Anthony Lum.\u00a0I don\u2019t even really think about the course of the day. Just my job is to stage shallow, let the clutch out, bang through the gears, keep her in the pipes, and just really stay within my side of the fence. I\u2019m really, really lucky. I\u2019m probably the luckiest driver here to have such a wonderful group of guys.\u201d<\/p>\n
The midnight JEGS team started race day from the No. 8 qualifying position to face Matt Latino in round one. Troy Jr. had the win on the starting line when Latino left -.002 seconds early. Troy Jr. had a 6.511-second pass at 210.58 mph to earn lane choice over rival Greg Anderson. The JEGS machine outran Anderson\u2019s 6.530 at 209.59 with a 6.528 pass at 208.62 that landed them a semi-final matchup against an Elite Motorsports teammate.<\/p>\n
It was a family affair in the semifinals. Troy Jr. lined up against his uncle, Jeg Coughlin Jr., in the classic black on yellow JEGS machine. Jeg Jr. had the clutch in early after running into trouble for a 6.594-second pass at only 190.68 mph while Troy Jr. had a clean 6.520 at 210.38 to head to his second final round of the season.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt Elite Motorsports, like Jordan Vandergriff said of his team, \u2018We don\u2019t lose, we learn.\u2019 We learn something every time we let the clutch out, and every dyno pull we learn something. That type of mindset is what Elite Motorsports really possesses, and that\u2019s what\u2019s so contagious. I want to be my best for this team, it\u2019s why I\u2019m in the simulator at home, lifting weights, doing cardio. At Elite we\u2019re constantly working and pushing ourselves for the love of the game and the love of each other.\u201d<\/p>\n
The NHRA Countdown to the Championship continues this weekend with the NHRA Nationals at The Rock at Rockingham Dragway in North Carolina Sept. 25-27.<\/p>\n
This story was originally published on September 22, 2026. <\/p>\n
The post Troy Coughlin Jr. Gets First Pro Stock Win of 2026 NHRA Countdown<\/a> first appeared on Drag Illustrated<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" After rain postponed eliminations at the Dodge NHRA Great Lakes Nationals at 131 Motorsports Park to Monday, Troy Coughlin Jr. and the JEGS Pro Stock team earned their first win of the season and the fifth for Elite Motorsports in 2026. Troy Jr. handled the JEGS Pro Stock machine to a 6.515-second pass at 209.69 […]<\/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-104842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104842","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=104842"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104842\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}