Coughlin, making his first final round appearance of 2016, powered his JEGS.com late model Corvette to a 5.878-second pass at 255.29 mph to defeat Bill Glidden’s 7.320 at 137.92 in his PTE/Mickey Thompson Ford Mustang.

"What a day," Coughlin said. "For the whole JEGS.com team, coming into this race fifth in points and with a race car that's a competitor, it's great to get this win. We've just had a couple burdens here and there, but (crew chief) Steve (Petty) got it fixed up, and Mike (Rees) and Kyle (Pettis) put it together. We had a good hot rod all race. I'm pretty excited about it, for sure."

This is Coughlin’s seventh career victory. He qualified seventh and raced past Mike Janis, two-time 2016 winner Rickie Smith, who exited the starting line and did not make a pass due to a problem with his car, and Steve Matusek en route to the victory. He is now second in the points standings behind Smith.

Coughlin won the 2015 NHRA Pro Mod Series championship but didn't win a race. But in the first race since NHRA added 50 pounds to turbocharged and nitrous cars, Coughlin's turbo Corvette proved its mettle.

"Winning the championship was really cool, and to do it without winning a race doesn't happen very often," Coughlin said. "In 2016, race No. 4, being a winner is really awesome. With the way the competition is in the Pro Mod class, it gets tougher and tougher each year.

"The nitrous cars were the underdog, and now they're on top of the world. And the supercharged cars are on top of the world. All three are pretty close, so that's pretty exciting. Hopefully we can run some more races without any rules changes and see where we stack up."