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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 |