Coughlin posted his best pass of the weekend in his first-round race against Jason Line -- a 6.640 at 208.30 mph in his JEGS.com Chevrolet Cobalt -- but Line's slightly quicker 6.629 at 209.01 mph turned on the win light in his lane, handing Coughlin his first Round 1 loss of the year.

"We obviously found what was slowing us down in qualifying but we were just a little too late with our forward progress this weekend," said Coughlin, who left the starting line ahead of Line by .001 seconds. "We got behind early and were playing catch up all weekend and it came back to bite us in the end."

Coughlin will now try to make up ground at next weekend's stop in Dallas, where he raced from the No. 1 qualifier's position to a runner-up finish one year ago and set the track's elapsed time record of 6.631 seconds. Coughlin won the Dallas race in 2002, the same year he won his second of four Pro Stock world titles.

"We'll need to be stars like the Dallas Cowboys next weekend," Coughlin said. "Our margin for error has tightened up a bit. It's certainly time to put our best foot forward and get to work. This is a team full of champions and we've come from behind to win the title the last two years in a row so we know what it takes.

"I think we'll be fine. No one is particularly happy at the moment but the good news is we don't have long to wait until we get to race again."

You certainly couldn't tell by watching Tom Hammonds this weekend that the Pro Stock driver was competing in his first national event in more than four months. He had one of the quickest and most consistent cars on the strip during three days of racing at zMax Dragway, and Hammonds is confident that the performance can continue next week in Dallas.

Hammonds qualified the Race for Achievement Chevrolet in the No. 8 position with a 6.662-second run at 206.80 mph. His elapsed time in the final session of time trials was the second quickest and earned him two Countdown bonus points.

On race day, Hammonds defeated round-one opponent Rodger Brogdon with a 6.636 e.t. to a 6.642-second run, and in round two he went up against No. 1 qualifier Mike Edwards. In the race against Edwards, Hammonds posted the second-quickest elapsed time of the session at 6.633 seconds, and Hammonds' .985 to 60 feet was the quickest of the round. Hammonds led all the way to the 330-foot marker, but unfortunately, Edwards' Pontiac in the opposite lane posted the best time of the session, a winning 6.620-second run. Edwards went on to win the national event and take over first place in the standings.

"The whole package is coming around," Hammonds said. "I owe a lot to Tomi Laine who did an excellent job in setting up this Race For Achievement Chevrolet, and Eric Luzinski did an excellent job his weekend in selecting gear ratios and transmission ratios. I think we were really messed up all year with our carburetors and Eric came in and did a good job of kind of straightening out that situation, and we ran a lot better than what we did earlier in the season.

"Mike (Edwards) has the best Pro Stock car in the world and to run as close as we ran to him gives us a lot of excitement going into the winter - knowing that if we continue to work as hard as we have these last few months that we've been out, we'll be right there."

Even with the long absence out of the car, Hammonds felt right at home. "Getting back in the car and racing felt like playing basketball again," Hammonds said. "I enjoyed competing again and we're going to go to Dallas, do the best that we can there, and then shut it down for the rest of the year and keep working."