Jumping off the starting line with the best reaction time in the class — .026 seconds –Coughlin piloted his JEGS.com /Mopar Dodge Avenger from the 16th and final qualifying position to a better elapsed time than the higher-ranked cars of Ronnie Humphrey and Rodger Brogdon to advance out of the first round along with low qualifier Jason Line. Under the unique four-wide format, the two quickest drivers of each foursome of racers move forward in the competition.

“It was exciting to get that win and have the car react well, especially after a tough qualifying session,” Coughlin said. “We really struggled the first two rounds of qualifying and the guys caught up to it a little in Q3 and Q4 and we were able to get the last spot, which was a feat in itself.

“Everyone worked hard overnight and the car was happier and in control today but still a little lazy. It was telling us to give it more so that’s what we did going into the semifinals.”

Facing Line, Erica Enders and Mike Edwards in the first quad of the semifinals, Coughlin once again launched well and was running side-by-side with Line and Enders until his Avenger got a little loose near mid track and slowed to a 6.691 at 209.92 mph. Both Line (6.543 at 212.46 mph) and Enders (6.568 at 210.70 mph) ran quicker, thereby eliminating Coughlin.

“We gave her what she wanted but with the sun on the track it appears we went just a little bit too far,” Coughlin said. “We weren’t off by much but it was enough. Truthfully, it would have taken our best poke of the weekend to beat a 6.54 and a 6.56 so we’ll take a semifinal finish here and head to Houston.

“The guys do have another new HEMI they want to try so I would imagine we’ll have some testing to do before we head to Texas. We’re working very hard at getting this car to be quicker and faster and we’re going to stay after it until we do.”

CHARLOTTE (April 15) – Erica Enders thought she was on an episode of “Punk’d.” Unfortunately for Enders and her GK Motorsports team, Ashton Kutcher was nowhere to be found.

As Enders drove past the zMax Dragway finish line, the No. 1 flashed on her lane, indicating she had won the 4-Wide NHRA Nationals. It wasn’t flashing, as it usually does when showing the winner, but no other lanes had win lights on, either.

Alas, Greg Anderson had crossed the finish line first, so despite wild celebration from Enders’ crew and fans in the grandstands, he indeed had won.

“I thought it was our day,” Enders said. “To have it and then lose it, it’s definitely a roller coaster of emotions. But either way, win or not, I couldn’t be more proud of my guys. I’m really blessed to have them. Maybe God’s storing us one up for Houston.”

Enders, gunning to become the first female winner in Pro Stock history, had a stellar day at zMax. She was fastest in her first-round matchup against Mike Edwards, Grace Howell and Steve Kent, advancing to the semifinals with a pass of 6.598 seconds at 209.59 mph.

Racing Jason Line, Jeg Coughlin and Edwards in the semis, Enders left first with a .017-second reaction time and got to the line first to advance to her first final round of 2012.

There, she left first again with a .016 light. With Line’s red light, and Nobile’s tire shake, the race came down to Enders and Anderson, and Anderson ran her down with a pass of 6.540 seconds at 212.23 mph, edging Enders’ run of 6.608 at 210.93 mph. The margin of victory was about a half-car length, and a malfunction prevented Anderson’s win light from coming on.

“It was a really weird, confusing deal, but he did win,” Enders said. “He ran a great lap, and it was evident on the replay. Light malfunction or not, he won the race, and that’s all there is to it. It sucks that it was such a roller coaster of emotion for a team that’s worked so hard to make history. To think you have it, and have it taken away in an instant is difficult to swallow.”

Enders, in the far left lane, had .037 seconds in the bank on the Christmas Tree on the starting line.

“We got last lane choice, and I knew I had to get in the Tree and get after it,” Enders said. “I was .17 in the semis and .16 in the finals. You really can’t ask for much more than that. I knew I had to get all over it. I let the clutch out, and I was like, ‘I got this.’

“I see my win light on at the end of the race track on the wall, and all I hear in my helmet are my guys on the radio: ‘We freaking did it! We finally won! Good job! We love you!’ Everybody’s on the radio screaming, and I’m like, ‘Thank you, guys! I love y’all. You’re awesome!’”

Her Cagnazzi Racing crew members celebrated wildly for several moments, even high-fiving exuberant fans in the stands. Soon, though, NHRA officials confirmed Anderson had won, and the fans began booing.

At the top end, Enders was never told Anderson won, but she soon figured it out.

“We pull off the track, and everybody’s coming around my car,” Enders said. “I’m just stoked, and then two seconds later, I get out of the car, and everybody goes to Greg’s car.”

Enders’ crew members could only shake their heads afterward, and engine specialist Rich Saulino said he’d never seen anything like that in his 48 years of racing.

But like Enders, her crew members are encouraged by the performance of the Chevrolet Cobalt. Enders reached her fourth final round in the last 19 races and moved up to sixth in the Pro Stock points standings.

Plus, Enders has been spot-on at the starting line in the last two races. In addition to the .16 and .17 Sunday, she was .015, .026 and .027 in Las Vegas.

“She’s been driving great,” team owner Victor Cagnazzi said. “She was calm and consistent all weekend. She shifted well and hit the Tree well. Fabulous.”

Crew chiefs Dave Connolly and Tommy Utt continue to upgrade the performance of the car, so Enders’ first victory could come soon.

“We had a really good hot rod today,” Enders said. “This four-wide stuff is always interesting anyway, but I think we all did a helluva job. My guys work their butts off for me every week, and I think they want this just as bad as I do, if not more. The excitement that you saw on the starting line tonight shows that.

“Our spirits are definitely high. We’ll go to Houston, my home track, and hopefully got one for real this time.”

Coughlin failed to get his JEGS.com /Mopar Dodge Avenger down the racetrack in the first two qualifying session but his crew worked overtime last night to correct a myriad of nagging issues. The car responded well in Saturday’s first pass, posting a 6.589 at 211.63 mph, and then improved to a 6.587 at 211.30 mph in Round 4.

“The two pairs of runs we made were very similar,” Coughlin said. “On Friday the 13th, both runs were terrible, which is just a coincidence because normally 13 is a lucky number for me. Today we had two almost identical 6.58s, so we’re moving in the right direction.

“We were happy to get down the racetrack today but we left a lot on the table. In Pro Stock terms that’s four or five hundredths of a second. That would have put us in the thick of the pack but it wasn’t meant to be. We did come a long way after a short evening’s rest and we’re gonna have to come a ways further before tomorrow. The good news is we’re very capable of doing just that.”

Under the unique 4-Wide format, Coughlin will face Jason Line, Ronnie Humphrey and Rodger Brogdon in Sunday’s first round of eliminations. The two quickest cars out of the foursome will advance to the semifinals.

“Two of the four will move on and I like those odds,” Coughlin said. “It’s a unique format and it makes it interesting.

“We were prepared to make some wholesale changes if the car didn’t respond in Q3 but we went from having too much wheel speed to having a ton of bite and the guys were able to adjust from there. We think we know what to do and now we need to go out there and win a few rounds and try to grab a hold of that Wally trophy.”

CHARLOTTE (April 14) – GK Motorsports driver Erica Enders posted her best qualifying effort of the season Saturday and will start final eliminations for the 4-Wide NHRA Nationals from the No. 4 position.

Enders surged to the top quarter of the field in Saturday’s first session, going 6.517 seconds at 212.33 mph in her Chevrolet Cobalt.

“You can throw Friday out the window,” Enders said of her first two qualifying sessions, when she finished No. 14. “We made a bunch of changes coming into today, and it showed in the first session this morning. We were trying some stuff in the last round, so we should be good for tomorrow, and I’m confident that we will be.”

With the unique four-wide format, Enders will be the top qualifier in her quad. She faces No. 5 qualifier Mike Edwards, No. 12 Steve Kent and No. 13 Grace Howell in the first round. The top two advance to the semifinals.

The Charlotte race is the only national event that uses four lanes instead of the usual two. That ups the difficulty of staging, as witnessed by the final qualifying session. Three of the drivers in Enders’ group pre-staged and staged, but Jason Line did not stage, thinking his bulb already indicated he had.

Line was then was timed out, and the remaining three had slower-than-usual reaction times, though Enders was best.

“It’s difficult because it’s different,” Enders said of racing four-wide. “It’s just so different from anything else we do, but it’s really not that hard of a concept. Your stage bulb goes with your lane, and you can throw the rest out. The only thing that can set people off, and we saw it in the last session, is when one of the drivers doesn’t know what stage light was his. (Line) got timed out, and that throws everybody else off. You’ve just got to be ready for anything because anything can happen with this format.”

Enders’ approach to eliminations will be to try to keep her staging process as simple as possible.

“You’ve got the best drivers in the world out there, but we’re all human,” Enders said. “It’s difficult, different. But like I said coming in here, I’m confident on our abilities and the performance of our car and my driving and ability to set aside the distractions and focus on me, my car and my lane.”

GK Motorsports driver Erica Enders had her best weekend of the 2012 NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series season, racing to the semifinals of the SummitRacing.com NHRA Nationals at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Along the way, Enders was terrific behind the wheel, leaving first in all three Pro Stock elimination rounds Sunday. Her three reaction times were .015, .026 and .027 seconds, and she won on a holeshot in the first round against Ronnie Humphrey.

“After Gainesville, where I hit the Tree and it turned out to be on the wrong side, I had to come back here and get my confidence back,” Enders said. “We left on everybody today, so that’s a plus.”

Enders fell to eventual race winner Allen Johnson in the semifinals, but her solid performance moved her into the top 10 of the Pro Stock points standings.

“It is early, but we need to stay in the top 10,” Enders said. “That’s money every weekend, and it’s important for how it sets up for the Countdown to the Championship. We’re going to race hard all year and hopefully build some consistency. I’ve got all the faith in the world in my guys. We’ve hired the best people you can hire. We’re going to be OK.”

After qualifying 10th, Enders faced No. 7 qualifier Humphrey in the first round. She cut a .027 light, beating Humphrey off the line by a gigantic .072 seconds. Enders made a pass of 6.661 seconds at 206.42 mph, beating Humphrey to the finish despite his faster pass of 6.647 seconds at 206.95 mph.

In the second round, Enders faced Larry Morgan, who upset No. 2 qualifier and three-time Vegas winner Mike Edwards in the first round. Enders left first again with a .015-second light, then beat Morgan with a pass of 6.728 seconds at 205.63 mph to Morgan’s 6.743 at 205.16 mph.

Against No. 3 qualifier Johnson, Enders left first again, .026 to .047, but Johnson’s car was faster, going 6.659 seconds at 206.89 mph to Enders’ 6.735 at 206.01 mph.

“We’ve been fighting our hot rod all weekend,” Enders said. “That’s evident by the elapsed times we put up there. We’re going to sort her out. We’re going to test before Charlotte and be ready to go there.

“I’m proud of my guys. We fought a good fight this weekend. It was nice to make it to the semifinals.”

Enders will take a break next weekend, enjoying some time off with her family and with boyfriend Richie Stevens.

“It’ll be nice to get away a little bit and take some much-needed time off,” Enders said. “We’ll head to Charlotte fresh.”

LAS VEGAS (April 1) – During a Top Fuel dragster race, a driver has to make any one of a number of decisions in just a fraction of a second. On Sunday at the SummitRacing.com NHRA Nationals, driver Brandon Bernstein was faced with a “frying pan or fire” decision in his opening-round race against Doug Kalitta.

As he was charging down The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway at nearly 300 mph with the MAVTV/Lucas Oil dragster drifting out of the groove, Bernstein was faced with the choice of staying in the gas and hitting the wall or lifting and letting Kalitta by.

“It’s frustrating, bottom line – it’s frustrating,” Bernstein said. “I was in the car just turning, turning, turning and it wasn’t responding. It seemed like it had one tire in the good stuff and one in the bad. It just kept driving the car (toward the wall) as long as I could.

“If I would have stayed in it, I would have hit the wall. I had to lift and I did it 100 or 200 feet before the finish line.”

In the end, Bernstein and Kalitta ran identical 3.846 second lap times. Bernstein ran his in 289.38 mph while Kalitta’s speed was 318.24 mph. In the end, Kalitta’s .037 second advantage earned at the starting line proved to be the difference.

“The car was running awesome,” Bernstein said. “I was shaping up to be a run that was a high 3.70 or a low, low 3.80. It’s unfortunate because we probably would have got him.

“It wasn’t a great light (reaction time), I left once mentally then the bulb went down. I hate that too, because I was real consistent in qualifying. In the end, we saved the car for sure and possibly a lot of work for the guys – and who knows, it might not have felt too good on me.”

The MAVTV rail is definitely improving and spirits were still high in the pits following the loss. Bernstein said the parts and pieces are there, now the team needs to mine a little luck.

“We know the MAVTV car is an awesome car, and it runs good,” Bernstein said. “We know we can run with anybody out there. We’ve just not had the breaks on race day to get into a rhythm to go rounds.

“Hopefully we’ll go to Charlotte and get that rhythm going.”

LAS VEGAS – Don Schumacher expects to announce next week the new crew chief for the NAPA Auto Parts Funny Car driven by Ron Capps after Tim Richards resigned from the position Saturday night.

The NAPA Auto Parts Dodge Charger R/T failed to qualify for Sunday’s elimination rounds of the SummitRacing.com NHRA Nationals at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Richards took the position after four of 22 national events last season and tuned Capps to national event wins at Sonoma, Calif. and the fall Las Vegas race.

“I understand the complexity of our race cars and how challenging our sport can be,” Schumacher said. “But when something occurs like what happened to our NAPA Auto Parts team at Las Vegas, what is paramount is that we work immediately to find the problem and correct it. We owe that effort to NAPA Auto Parts and other associate sponsors on the car.”

Capps came into the Vegas race sixth in Funny Car points, winning four rounds in three races in 2012.

“I have tremendous respect for Tim and appreciate what he did last year to help Ron win two NHRA titles,” Schumacher said. “I wish Tim the best. The commitment to our marketing partners is we will do whatever is within our power to win and compete on a championship level.”

LAS VEGAS (March 31) – GK Motorsports driver Erica Enders starts the 13th annual SummitRacing.com NHRA Nationals out of the No. 10 position, but because of a drastic weather change for eliminations at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, that may be of little consequence.

The four Pro Stock qualifying sessions were held under sunny skies, with ambient temperatures over 80 degrees and track temps even higher. But Sunday, the temperature won’t get out of the 60s, and winds will cause the track temp to be even lower.

Enders is confident in her team, led by crew chiefs Dave Connolly and Tommy Utt.

“You can pretty much throw everything out the window from this weekend,” Enders said. “Tomorrow’s going to be 25 degrees colder. We’ll be all right. I’ve got some smart boys, so they’ll figure it out. If I can let the clutch out, we’ll be fine.”

Enders is considered to be one of the best in reaction times of the Pro Stock drivers, so if the GK Motorsports Chevrolet is up to the task, Enders should be, too.

The most prolific female driver in Pro Stock history, Enders qualified No. 10 with a best pass of 6.721 seconds at 205.57 mph. The team had to overcome a double-burnout from the first qualifying session after the waterbox on the starting line didn’t properly wet the tires on the GK Motorsports Chevrolet. The car then shot right on the launch.

Enders made a solid run in the right lane in Q2, then shook the tires in Q3. Under warm conditions, Enders had one of the top passes in Q4 at 6.731 seconds at 205.51 mph.

“We started a little bit behind the 8-ball because we had an issues in the first qualifying session,” Enders said. “We had to dig our way out. We had the right lane the second session, and while we didn’t run near our potential, we got down.

“We blew the tires off this morning in the right lane in Q3, and then we made a decent run for the weather in Q4.”

Enders, though, has a bright outlook for Sunday, where she faces No. 7 qualifier Ronnie Humphrey in the first round. Humphrey’s best pass was 6.706 seconds at 206.45 mph.

“We’ve got Ronnie in the morning,” Enders said. “You can win from any position.

“It’s been a blast in Vegas. All my GK guys are in town, and they always have a good time, no matter where we are.”

LAS VEGAS (March 31) – If there’s a time and place for the beast to come out in Brandon Bernstein’s MAVTV/Lucas Oil Top Fuel dragster it’s Sunday at the SummitRacing.com NHRA Nationals at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

“The conditions have been tough to gauge all weekend,” Bernstein said. “My crew chief Joe Barlam is doing a great job and is making the right calls. It’s tough in conditions like this.

“The car is close, really close.”

Bernstein, who qualified No. 9 on Saturday, is in the side of the ladder featuring some of the sport’s heavy hitters including first-round opponent Doug Kalitta, teammate and top qualifier Morgan Lucas, and multi-time class champion Tony Schumacher with Shawn Langdon and Antron Brown thrown in for good measure.

Bernstein said if the track conditions come around on Sunday the way they are expected to, the MAVTV rail will be as tough to beat as any other car on the property.

“Doug Kalitta is always tough,” Bernstein said. “He’s a great driver and that’s a great team over there, which always makes for a tough matchup. If we get by him, more than likely we’ll get Morgan second round.

“We feel like the MAVTV car has the performance, we just need to fine tune it for the track conditions. You never know what it’s going to be like until you wake up in the morning. There’s supposed to be a drastic change in temperature, and it should be better for all of us.”

Bernstein’s best lap was a 3.933 second lap at 311.56 mph, while Kalitta had a 3.894 seconds at 315.78 mph. Bernstein said it’s no accident that the car’s performance has improved at the same rate the team’s chemistry has improved.

“Everyone on the team is really coming together,” Bernstein said. “We’re starting to get all in synch and hit our stride. It takes a little bit of time to adjust to one another, and we’re really closing in.”