THE DRAG ILLUSTRATED INTERVIEW
The five-time NHRA Pro Stock
world champion looks back
on three decades of racing,
mixing business and pleasure,
and explains why he can’t stay
away from Pro Stock.
BY JOSH HACHAT
Photographs by
BROOKE HACHAT, WILL M C DOUGLE,
SHAWN CROSE AND NHRA / NATIONAL DRAGSTER
PRAWLED ON a 135-acre cam-
pus in Delaware, Ohio, JEGS’
225,000-square-foot facility is
a crown jewel in the burgeon-
ing town 25 miles north of Co-
lumbus. It is a facility steeped
in success – both as a business
and as a race team – with some
measure of history and tradition
at nearly every turn. Jeg Cough-
lin Jr.’s championship-winning
Pro Stock Cutlass and Super Gas dragster, which he drove to
his first world title in 1992, greet visitors immediately at the
entrance, providing the first glimpse of history in a company
that is as much nostalgic as it is forward-thinking and inno-
vative. ¶ An awe-inspiring spiral staircase sits in the middle
of the building and is wrapped in Wally trophies, a scene that
can give a first-time visitor goosebumps. Many of them came
from Coughlin’s 62 Pro Stock wins and 81 total NHRA victories,
while many more sit in the 35,000-square-foot race shop that
sits adjacent to the main building. That state-of-the-art facility
is half museum – an upper level is a trip down memory lane with
old Gassers, Top Fuel dragsters and Pro Stock cars bearing the
Coughlin name – and half race shop, with Coughlin’s variety of
sportsman cars sitting alongside current cars from the rest of
the family. ¶ For Coughlin, it all serves as the only motivation
he ever needs. He’s through the doors early each morning, bal-
ancing the demands of a highly successful business and racing
career with pristine precision. A look behind the scenes of the
mail order operation shows a company mailing out millions of
orders each year in a cutting-edge warehouse stacked with $25-
$35 million of inventory at any given time, while when it’s time
to race, the 49-year-old Coughlin remains as locked in as ever.
D r a g Il l u s t r a t e d . c o m
81
Dr ag Illustr ated