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maybe last year gave me a little bit of confidence – I certainly have a lot of confidence in our team ’ s ability to react to rule changes and adapt to them . We have a lot of talented people working for us , so I feel okay with the rule changes , as long as they ’ re not too costly . Cost is such a big deal now and nobody looks forward to incurring more cost .
TC : The only thing that ’ s really dramatic is the rules and the way they change , but that ’ s racing . There ’ s going to be rule changes that are good for you and rule changes that aren ’ t good for you . How do you deal with that ? I think just staying in tight , good communications with the team , saying we need everything we can get out of this thing in every single run , and then make decisions from there . My mindset is these are the rules , NHRA is not going to change it , so what can we do to make this thing fast inside these rules ? That takes a group of people on the team , a group of people in the engine shop and a group of people that tune the chassis . You sit down , write down the pros and cons of it and how we can better ourselves , make more power and it just takes a big group of people to start bouncing ideas off each other . When you ’ ve got a class that has three or four power adders and they ’ re all fast and competitive , that ’ s drama itself . Some of the rule changes the supercharged guys got , it should benefit them quite a bit , so we ’ ve got to work on our stuff , but we have and we ’ ll come out faster than we did last year .
RS : We ’ ve all been really close through this whole ( Pro Mod ) thing , other than the turbo car . The turbo car has just been so far out the last three years , they just play with us . The biggest thing that ’ s helped me cope with it is , luckily , I ’ ve had a sponsor with IDG and Charlie Lingenfelter , and they ’ ve realized what ’ s going on . They understand what ’ s going on with the rule changes . If it hadn ’ t been for that and I had to explain this to Joe Blow who had no idea what ’ s going on , it would have been a tough sell to my sponsor . Luckily , Charlie knew the deal .
It ’ s one thing to have everything go right for one season and it becomes a success , and it ’ s quite another to keep success going year after year . What has stood out to you as far as keys to consistently being successful over a long period ?
JL : There ’ s no question it requires work ethic . That ’ s your biggest asset . You ’ ve got to be able to work at it hard and that ’ s the biggest thing . ( Teammate and four-time world champion ) Greg ( Anderson ) is very intense and you ’ re not
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going to outwork him . He ’ s a working machine . If you ’ re looking for inspiration to put in effort , he ’ s your guy . He certainly drives everyone to work , and that ’ s a big deal . At the same it ’ s not about panicking , it ’ s about taking an analytical
“ When you ’ re racing with a target on your back , you can go from zero to hero and hero to zero in the matter of one run ,” Coughlin said .
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TURBO THREAT Troy Coughlin doesn ’ t let rule changes hold back his performance , instead choosing to spend more time and money on R & D programs in house and at Pro Line Racing , his engine builder of choice . The result was three wins in 2016 .
approach to everything and applying that with a little desire and work ethic . With all that , I think you can accomplish a lot .
TC : Again , I think it ’ s a big communication factor with your team efforts , trying to stay abreast of what ’ s going on , sometimes even on a daily basis , taking the guidelines you have and trying to make the best spin on it . That ’ s the passion we have that keeps us driving that way , and we just don ’ t quit . NHRA took three pounds of boost away from us when we went to Norwalk ( last year ), so that ’ s a pretty good hit . I said to the guys and the guys in the engine shop , ‘ Let ’ s go back to work and let ’ s work on everything . We need to pick this thing back up .’ These guys down at Pro Line ( Racing ) and in the JEGS . com shop put their heads together and we went and tested a lot before Indy , and that thing was three or four hundredths quicker than everybody else on the property . A couple of guys came to us and said , ‘ Man , you guys lost three pounds of boost and it didn ’ t seem to affect you .’ And I said to them , ‘ Well you should have seen the checkbook .’ The
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PHOTOS : NATE VAN WAGNEN , JEGS RACING ARCHIVES |