On any given Sunday stuff can happen. Just ask defending NHRA Pro Stock champion Jeg Coughlin.

On any given Sunday stuff can happen. Just ask defending NHRA Pro Stock champion Jeg Coughlin.

Coughlin said he was "given some bad fuel" before the first round on Sunday at the NHRA Fall Nationals. Then he had to run down a determined Rodger Brogdon and won by only seven 10-thousandths of a second. Then, in the semifinal, his JEGS.com Chevy Cobalt slid sideways just off the starting line, and he had to shut off his engine to avoid crashing. He referred to his result against Johnny Gray as "disappointing to beat yourself, which is how this feels." He said he didn't want to take anything away from Gray: "He won the round, and I congratulate him. But I sure wish we could have made it down the track and given ourselves a chance. We fought hard all day, and it was a real battle." He said after the fuel fiasco, all the Victor Cagnazzi Racing team changed was the fuel. "The car almost didn't run at all," he said of his first-round situation. "All we changed for Round 2 was the fuel and we picked up considerably, so I'm not sure what the deal was with the fuel supply. I guess we should be happy we made it as far as we did."

Coughlin went on to add with the four-races-in-four-weeks schedule that starts the Countdown, "you don't have much time to think about things. You just press forward. Mike (Edwards) was the only guy ahead of us in the points, and he lost in the semis, also. So no harm, no foul there. We've got a good race car, and we'll just go hard in Memphis, a track that's been very good to us in the past."

Advertisement