Troy Coughlin Jr. won’t let a tough weekend get him down

Courtesy of Jegs

MONTGOMERY, AL – Sometimes success isn’t measured in wins and losses and that’s a lesson that Troy Coughlin Jr. is all too familiar with following an exasperating weekend at the CARS Protection Plus Million Dollar Drag Race. With several big money E.T. bracket wins to his credit this season, Coughlin entered the race with a lot of confidence but was consistently humbled with a string of early round losses.

“I tried my best but this weekend, that wasn’t nearly good enough, “said Coughlin. “I raced some of the best opponents there are – world champions, former Million Dollar race winners; you name it, and I just couldn’t beat them. I made some mistakes and I also just flat lost some close races.”

Coughlin was brimming with confidence after driving his JEGS.com dragster to a late round finish during Thursday’s $20,000 warm-up event. Out of a field of more than 450 starters, Coughlin made the final ten but that was the end of his racing luck for the event.

“I lost in the third round on Friday and then didn’t win another round after that,” he said. “It really wasn’t much to write home about. I had to run John Labbous Jr. in one race and then had to race against Peter Biondo, who won two of the three $20,000 races. That’s what I had to deal with. Now matter what happens I always learn something new so I would never say the weekend was a total loss. If a few of the close races had gone the other way I might have made the money once or twice. Now, we’re just going to take what we learned here, re-evaluate our program and see where we can improve. My girlfriend, Mia [Tedesco] also won a lot of rounds so I was really happy for her. She did a great job.”

The CARS Protection Plus Million Dollar Drag Race attracted a field of 235 drivers who each posted the $2,000 entry fee. In the final round, Ray Miller II drove his dragster to a narrow victory over the Camaro of Ricky Jones. Miller pocketed a whopping $235,000 for the victory.

As for Coughlin, he will now return to the NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series tour with a stop at this weekend’s Big O Tires Nationals inLas Vegas. Coughlin will be racing in Super Comp and Super Gas. In 2009, Coughlin claimed his first NHRA national event title when he won Super Comp at theLas Vegasrace