Greg Anderson (Ron Lewis photo)

In one of the biggest races of the still-young season, Coughlin faced off against Anderson. Knowing he needed a good effort at the tree, Coughlin produced a .020 second reaction time against Anderson's .039-second start, and held on to win by .001 seconds. Coughlin crossed with a 6.593 at 208.62 mph to Anderson's 6.575 at 209.59 mph.

The final pitted Coughlin against second-ranked Line, who had out-run Coughlin by just .001 seconds in his semifinal race, earning Line lane choice. But he blew the advantage almost immediately by jumping the light bytwo-thousandths of a second. Adding to the sting is the fact Line outran Coughlin down the strip, posting a 6.578 at 210.34 mph to Coughlin's slower but winning 6.588 at 208.39 mph.

"It's exciting to beat those guys because they're the best of the best," Coughlin said. "You know, this team has gelled so well over the last two years and we've managed to win the last two titles. The only real goal we had for this season was to repeat and to do that we felt like we needed more round wins early in the year. So far, we've managed to do just that and now we're going to some of our favorite places on the schedule so hopefully we'll just get better and better and keep this rolling."

The win, Coughlin's third of the year in five final-round showings, pads his lead to 49 points through seven races.

Rickie Jones got the first round win over Allen Johnson, but lost the next one to Greg Anderson. Anderson ran 6.591/209.69 to Jones’s 6.656/207.43.  (Jeff Burk photo)