Dream Team
Mopar® made a revelation at the 2011 Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) show in Las Vegas that will have the NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series Pro Stock class shaking in their racing shoes: four-time NHRA Pro Stock champion Jeg Coughlin Jr. will debut a new Mopar/JEGS.com Dodge Avenger for the 2012 NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series campaign. Mopar Magazine tracked down the only driver in NHRA history to win a national event in six different classes for an exclusive interview about his new team and engine program, his past experiences with the Mopar brand and why he thinks he can bring home a Pro Stock championship for Mopar next year.
“When we pull in the gate at Pomona … it will be a car that is capable of qualifying on the pole, a car capable of winning on Sunday. I think we’ll be able to fire some shots off the bow immediately.” Jeg Coughlin Jr., on his new Mopar/JEGS.com Dodge Avenger Pro Stock car.
MM: You were born into racing. Your father, Jeg Sr., the founder of the JEGS performance parts business, has driven in practically every NHRA class. Almost all of your family members race, and you’ve been involved in drag racing for two decades, with your first win coming at your home track of National Trail Raceway when you were just 20 years old. Talk about how racing is in your family’s DNA.
JC: We’ve always grown up extremely tight. I’ve got three older brothers, John, Troy and Mike, and then myself, I’m the youngest. We’ve grown up racing—going to the race track with our parents, watching the cars race, later helping to work on the cars, then ultimately getting behind the wheel and driving the cars. It’s always been a part of my life. And then on the flip side of that, we also grew up in the JEGS business together, working on the weekends in the warehouse. All of us have had a constant, growing experience with the JEGS team in the racing world and the business world, to the point that our family is very close in that manner. We still to this day work together and race together, and that’s pretty exciting.
MM: You and your family run the massive JEGS business and also carry a pretty heavy racing schedule as well. Is it hard for the family to find the time to relax and take a break together?
JC: We actually try to pull off a family dinner at least once a week. My parents live here for six months out of the year and spend the rest of their time in Florida, so when they’re here in Ohio my stepmom Sue and dad Jeg Sr. host a dinner for the family. Sometimes it can be 12–14 of us, sometimes it’s thirty-plus. It’s hard to keep track of the schedules sometimes, but it’s definitely something we look forward to. There are ten grandkids in all, sometimes they have friends that come with them, and sometimes we have friends that come along. It’s a fun event, to get together in a different environment instead of work or racing. But as you can imagine, a good deal of conversation seems to revolve around the motorsports world!
MM: You announced at SEMA that you will compete in a Mopar®/JEGS.com Dodge Avenger next year in the NHRA Pro Stock class. How involved will your family be in your team?
JC: This will be an all in-house run program, and we’ll run the team itself out of our Coughlin Brothers Racing shop, which I co-own with my brothers in Delaware, Ohio, right next to the JEGS headquarters. My father, Jeg Sr., will serve as a kind of team advisor. He is very, very wise and will be very instrumental, in not only our engine program being top of the line efficient, but also our at-track program. My pop and I, and all my brothers, John, Troy and Mike, we’ve been extremely successful together and I’m really comfortable with the way things are lining up.
MM: Talk about the engine program for your new team? Who will supply your Mopar HEMI® engines?
JC: We have formed an alliance with Nick Ferri and Roy Simmons, JNR Racing, which stands for JEGS, Nick and Roy. We worked with them in the past, when we had our own in-house engine program in the early 2000s. The engines they have built have powered teams to multiple championships, and we’re really excited to join back with those two. They’re both masterminds in technology, engine assembly, you name it. With their knowledge, coupled with the expertise we can tap at the Chrysler Tech Center, I think we’re really going to see some great noise out of our Mopar HEMIs. The shop will be based in Mooresville, N.C. We started from scratch; we didn’t have tool one, and now we have everything from drill presses to CNC machines that are working and in operation. Nick and Roy are both excited about the potential of the Mopar HEMI, trying to get the most efficient running engine.
MM: Fill us in on the details of your team. Who will be your crew chief? What chassis will you utilize?
JC: Tomi Laine will act as crew chief. His background, he’s won European Pro Stock championships himself in the late 1990s and came over to the states to get involved in Pro Stock racing here, and has been involved with a number of Pro Stock teams. I think he’s going to do a great job with us. We’re going to go with the Jerry Haas chassis, which Mopar-powered driver Allen Johnson also competes with, and I think that’s going to prove well. I felt like having a similar car would be of benefit, with different aerodynamic and technological tests that we could partake in and share.
MM: The announcement at SEMA brings together two leaders in the performance parts market, Mopar and JEGS. Are there plans for a closer relationship between the two brands away from the track as well?
JC: I think it’s a natural fit, obviously, to continue to build the brands. We’re really excited to not only be associated with the Mopar brand at the drag strip but to also help extend that brand out to the hundreds of thousands of JEGS customers, and service those customers with the Mopar parts that they need.
MM: Talk a little bit about how the new alliance with Mopar came about.
JC: The folks at Mopar called me over the winter to see if I’d be interested in driving the new Mopar V-10 Challenger Drag Pak car at Pomona, but unfortunately I had plans already and wasn’t able to do it, but we just continued to talk. I’ve gotten to know Dale Aldo (Mopar Motorsports Marketing Manager) over the years, and I’ve always watched the Mopar HEMI cars, and I’ve competed in them over the years.
One thing led to another in our discussions. It really just came down to the conclusion that if I was going to get back into it at the level it takes to win championships in NHRA, that going the route where everything was all-inclusive, the engine program and the management of the car program all under one roof, I really felt like that was a must. So Dale and I talked about Mopar’s Pro Stock program, and obviously the new program has been extremely strong the last couple years, with drivers like Allen Johnson, V. Gaines and Vincent Nobile, and we just continued to talk, and next thing we knew we were getting pretty serious about it, and it looked like I would be renewing my vows with the Pro Stock
MM: You stepped away from Pro Stock competition in 2011. How big of a role did the opportunity to partner up with Mopar play in your decision to return to competition?
JC: As we talked further, my family and I, to get back into the Pro Stock business again at the level it takes to compete for race wins and championships, it takes a big, big commitment. I raced for Don Schumacher Racing for a season (2005), and we had a great year. We closed out the year with our only Pro Stock win in a Dodge, which was fantastic, and then we partnered with Victor Cagnazzi and raced with him for about four seasons and did extremely well.
But again, to compete at the highest level, every “I” needs to be dotted, every “T” needs to be crossed. I’m not saying that wasn’t happening, but I think the partnership and the relationship that I’ve had with the folks at Mopar over the years, and renewing those relationships and discussing what opportunities we would have as a team, both Mopar and JEGS, it looked like we really had the right ingredients to put together a team that we felt could go right to the top. And I can tell you our goals are definitely as lofty as that.
Not only was it the best deal, we felt like the long-term relationships, the technology at everybody’s fingertips and the internal drive within Mopar and Chrysler headquarters is pretty darn strong, and that speaks volumes for where they’d like to see their program go. Mopar has been very successful with a lot of teams over the years, such as Allen Johnson’s J&J Racing squad, and we certainly hope to continue that success and hopefully take it up another notch.
MM: As you mentioned, you’re no stranger to Mopar. You won the 2004 Mopar HEMI Challenge event at Indy, you raced a Mopar Dodge Pro Stock car in 2005 for Schumacher, and you have competed in Sportsman classes in a Mopar Challenger Drag Pak. Can you talk about your experiences racing with Mopar, and some of the exposure you’ve gotten to the passionate Mopar fans out there?
JC: I think that is definitely a very true statement—Mopar fans are very passionate, not only of their own cars but of the race cars that carry the Mopar branding, and I feel that’s true for all Chrysler Group brands. I got first-hand experience, visiting different dealerships throughout the country during my 2005 season competing in a Dodge. It really rang home the passion those fans have. There’s a lot of energy and a lot of pride in the brand, and quite frankly that helps fuel us, that helps fuel me as a driver and as a team owner. I can tell you that drive will continue all the way through all of our platforms as we try to elevate and reach our goals.
Running the Mopar HEMI Challenge, the Barracuda that I drove for Harry Holton, was really an honor. I always watched those cars from the fences from the early 1970s all the way to the first time I sat in one, and then I got a chance to drive one. I really, really enjoyed it.
MM: A little birdie told us that your first car was a Mopar. True?
JC: As a matter of fact, it was. I have a couple of first stories in my life that have revolved around Mopar and Chrysler Group. Being the youngest of four I had a couple of rules before I could buy my first car: It couldn’t have a V-8 in it, couldn’t have a turbo charger, couldn’t have tinted windows, couldn’t have a loud stereo. Basically, that leaves you with a four-cylinder. My dad and I were driving down to the race track in 1986, when I turned 16, and there was a little used car lot off the highway. We stopped in and I saw this 1983 Dodge Charger, a Carroll Shelby edition. It wasn’t performance, it was just the stripes and the cool CS logo and the seats. I saved up money to buy the car, and I drove it for a couple of years, I guess. Had some first dates in it, all kinds of good stuff. Another story, when I started working in our JEGS business as a teenager, one of the first jobs I had was to rearrange the warehouse so we could make more space for a parts brand that was expanding—the Direct Connection brand of Mopar. Kind of a neat coincidence.
MM: Going forward from SEMA, what are your plans for testing the new car?
JC: We’re tentatively looking to start some testing in December, and we’ll likely test in Southern Florida for at least two or three days. We’ll break for the holidays, then evaluate and continue to strengthen our game plan for as many tests as we need. But we’ve been pretty fortunate in years past. If we can do a good job in the engine shop and build good horsepower, then we’re usually pretty close to competing at the racetrack, so we’re hoping to not spend too many days testing. But we’ll do whatever it takes. At a minimum, we’ll have a test in December and also one in January, and then head west for Vegas for the pre-season warm-up, then off to Pomona.
MM: Tell us your mindset heading into the first race of 2012 at Pomona. Do you think the Mopar/JEGS.com Dodge is going to be ready to go right out of the gate?
JC: When we pull in the gate at Pomona, there’s no question we will have it in as good of shape as we can have it in, with the lofty goals that we’ve set for ourselves. In our opinion, it will be a car that is capable of qualifying on the pole, a car capable of winning on Sunday. That’s an extremely bold statement, without question, for a new team like this, but when you look at the depth of our team, with all the names I’ve mentioned, with the engine group and with Tomi, myself behind the wheel, and my father, I think there’s a lot of experience there. I think we’ll be able to fire some shots off the bow immediately.
MM: Where would it rank on your long list of accomplishment if you could bring home a championship for Mopar in 2012?
JC: It would mean a lot to us. We would be honored to bring a championship home to Detroit for all their efforts. The passion from the folks at Mopar and Chrysler Group is second to none that I’ve ever been a part of, and their passion, drive and excitement is a big, big reason why this whole program came together. I think we’re really going to have a hell of a program, and bringing home the championship would mean the world not only to me but to the entire team that has helped put this relationship together. Hopefully we can do this for many years to come—and that’s win races and win championships.
