JEGS Returns to Its Racing Roots with Two-Car Pro Stock Effort in 2026

When JEGS transitioned from a family-owned company to an investment group controlling the reins in 2021, the aftermarket high-performance auto parts company’s involvement in the NHRA Pro Stock Class became less prevalent, but that’s changing in 2026 due to a new marketing approach.

“The new group at JEGS is learning something new pretty much every quarter,” said Troy Coughlin Jr., who writes web content and assists with JEGS digital marketing team. “They’re seeing how it (drag racing) impacts our company and our customer. ’26 is going to be a really, really fun year and it’s going to open the eyes of our new group, teach them about a market that they’re aggressively learning.”

Coughlin said that when the current JEGS CEO attended his first race last year he was baffled because he saw JEGS stickers on several cars. It was explained to him that they were JEGS customers.

“They just didn’t know (how everything worked). It was a very new company to them.” Coughlin said.

Coughlin admitted that when the new owners took over the company that his grandfather founded in 1960 he was initially shy and reluctant to provide much feedback. That’s not the case now.

“I usually sit with them once a quarter, our CEO and their head of marketing and ask them, ‘Hey, here’s our sponsorship, here’s how many viewers on Fox, and their social accounts from NHRA decks and things,” Coughlin said.

This year, Coughlin drives a black, trimmed in yellow JEGS-sponsored Pro Stock car for Elite Motorsports in the Mission Foods NHRA Drag Racing Series. His uncle, Jeg Coughlin Jr. returned to full-time Pro Stock competition in 2024, driving Elite Motorsports’ entry sponsored by SCAG Power Equipment.

Troy told the company leaders that if they wanted to increase sales, they needed to put his uncle Jeg Coughlin Jr. back in a Pro Stock car with JEGS on the side of it. They listened and next year Jeg returns to the familiar yellow and black trimmed Pro Stock car.

In fact, JEGS will be the primary sponsor for Pro Stock cars fielded by Elite Motorsports for Jeg and Troy.

Troy says the return of the yellow JEGS car trimmed in black means “normalcy.”

“I grew up around two JEGS Pro Stock Cars a good majority of my life before my dad stepped away from Pro Stock,” Troy said.

Jeg walked away from full-time competition in the sport because he had raced Pro Stock for more than 20 years and he wanted a different type of normalcy, especially with his family. However, in the summer of 2023 his 8-year-old daughter told him she missed him racing Pro Stock. His wife also encouraged him to return if he had the opportunity. That opportunity came when Elite Motorsports owner Richard Freeman called Jeg and asked him to test Erica Enders’ car in the season’s final two events with SCAG sponsorship.

When Jeg returned to full-time competition in 2024 in the SCAG colors, he actually walked to Troy’s car instead and tried to get into it because it had JEGS on it. He said the transition to the car with the SCAGS paint scheme “was a huge transition for me mentally.” He said numerous fans have even told him it seems strange not to see him in the yellow and black JEGS Pro Stock car.

Jeg agreed with his nephew that returning to a JEGS-sponsored car in 2026 is a return to “normalcy.”

“We grew up with the race track, so we were organically doing much of this work ourselves week-in and week-out,” Jeg said. “So, there was probably a small void that presented itself after the transition. I think our alliance coming together with a two-car punch … will bring some normalcy back to … the company side.”