The first time Jeg Coughlin Jr. won at the Texas Motorplex - the famed facility located outside of Dallas, Texas, wasn't giving away Cowboy hats to the winners back in 2002. 

But Sunday, Coughlin did cowboy stuff behind the wheel of his SCAG-sponsored Camaro. Then he got his hat. 

Coughlin won for the fourth time this season, defeating longtime rival Greg Anderson in the final round with a run of 6.592 at 208 miles an hour, and now 69 career Pro Stock wins for the five-time champ. 

"I got to say I was looking through some of our family stats and race wins, and what made me look through it is I was invited to the Champions dinner, and I was leafing through our stats, and I'm like, 'Wow, it was some time ago," Coughlin said. "It's great to renew my vows here. Obviously, Billy Meyer and his family put a lot of heart and soul not only into this event but their whole Stampede of Speed. It feels great to be victorious here, to say the least.

When Coughlin came into Pro Stock racing in the early part of the 1990s, he was the young, fresh-faced driver going up against the legends such as Bob Glidden and Warren Johnson. Coughlin even joked about a comment he attributed to the legendary Johnson, "He don't know the difference between a piston and a petunia."

Coughlin does now, and proved it on a day when the racing was as hot as racing on the surface of the sun. The most significant difference between the Coughlin who didn't win the cowboy hat and the one who did is understanding how to use every asset he had. 

"That's what the crew chiefs are paid to do and they do one heck of a job at it," Coughlin said. "In our case at Elite Motorsports, we competed with eight vehicles, eight teams this weekend. There's always a lot of data to turn through and to go through, and with that also comes some issues you got to sort out. We had changed motors in my car right before the final round against Greg.

"Not that we felt like anything was wrong, but I ran back to back .62 or .63s and really weren't making that poor of runs. And we knew he had that .54 in it from this morning, which should be .57, .58 by tonight. Fortunately, we got him on a miscue and took advantage of it. It wasn't our best performance from coast to coast, from behind the wheel, I will say. But the Elite guys worked extremely hard on my car all weekend long, trying to fine-tune the tune-up.

"We were fortunate we had some dry weather, but some very warm weather, and our power management skills were definitely tested with the warm track conditions."

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Anderson didn't seem to have the same issue as everyone else, and Coughlin knew it. And, in their 23rd career final round, Coughlin understood he needed some help. 

"Greg's always been the pinnacle since he's got behind the wheel of a Pro Stock car," Coughlin said. "They've always had great programs and they were always extremely fast, so it made it tough to one up on him at any time. And today, he had us outpaced performance wise. So we jokingly said, 'We need to pull a rabbit out of the hat before this final round." 

"And fortunately, did."

On a day when his Elite team bowed out of competition, that's when the wrangler instincts in the Ohio-based Coughlin percolated to the surface. 

"They were definitely ganging up us as things as we were getting eliminated, which was unfortunate," Coughlin said. "Obviously, I want to see our Elite team taking them out along the way and us duking it out ourselves. But you take pride in trying to make good quality runs and turning win lights on. That's kind of what today was all about.

Obviously, I saw Erica go out, and Aaron had just a misfortune. His transmission shifted into second and bounced out a second on him, and he was running extremely well. Dallas had a very poor run, but not to the point that we'll never know the result of that race because it's over, and it happened the way it did. Sometimes, you're the last man standing, and it's fun to try and run with that torch and help lead the team into victory.

"I can by no means take that solo. I had an army of Elite performance folks behind me, and they're just as deserving as I am. I'm just a driver that gets the fortunate opportunity to drive the car, and I do love to drive the cars. It's been great to be back this year, and being in the winner's circle here at the Texas Motorplex is very special. When I went here 20-plus years ago, we were not awarded these beautiful cowboy hats, so I feel like I'm ready to hop on that bull."

And he did it cowboy-style, even if he's from Ohio.