It takes less than six seconds for Lindsay Strasburg to see the results of hundreds of hours of work. With six ticks of the second hand, he will experience the rewards of racing or endure the frustrations of losing.
Strasburg is a drag racer. Every ounce of him - and there are a few - is immersed in racing in a backstage manner. He's not a driver but rather a member of a family pit crew.As the motor pounds and the tires spin, Strasburg will live every second of the run from behind the dragster. He'll watch as his brother, Mike, smokes the tires to heat them up, while he stages and as he runs.
He'll watch and listen: Were the RPMs right? Did the tires slip or shake too much? Were the shift points right? Did the car go straight? Did the engine smoke? Were there any signs of oil on the track?
Then he'll look up at the lights at the end of the quarter-mile track to see who won.
All in six-plus seconds.
Then the work begins. In the next hour, the crew will tear down the engine, fold the chutes and plan for the next run.
The racing bug was planted in the Strasburg genetic pool by his father, Allen, one of Utah's early racers. So deeply rooted is it now that when the family isn't out racing, it's either looking for another race to watch, building engines at its business (Strasburg Machine in Lehi) or working on the race car.
Along with Lindsay and Mike, brothers Jeff and Tim also pit for the alcohol dragster, as do Lindsay's three sons - Ben, Clint and Aaron - and nephews Cameron Hardinger and Sage and Casey Strasburg, along with a family friend, Jim Elliott. Sheryl, Sue, Colleen and Linda Strasburg keep the clan fed when they're not checking computer printouts or chasing down parts.
"It's difficult, though. We love it, we do, but it's not a business to us. We can't get to as many races as we'd like in order to be a consistent winner. We're close, very close," said Lindsay as he stepped back and watched the hive of activity around the car between races.
"The cars that are winning have major sponsors. The car we lost to last week, for example, has four full-time people on staff. We had a faster speed and time, but he got the jump on us at the start. That comes with experience."
The rear-engine dragster the Strasburgs run has a 217-inch wheel base, is as skinny as a rail and has an engine that puts out close to 3,000 horsepower at sea level. It runs balloon tires on the rear, bike tires on the front, and with engine and driver weighs only 2,100 pounds.
By conservative estimates, the family has put in a lifetime of work into the car. "Thousands of hours getting it ready, and then I'd say a hundred or more hours each week between races," said Lindsay. "We'll experiment with something, and if it doesn't work we'll start over and try something else. We're always trying something new, always trying to get a little more speed."
He figures the family has close to $80,000 in the car, trailer and spare parts, which includes two or more of just about everything, including the engine.
On race day, the family arrives in a caravan, sets up its working compound, then begins to prep the car.
When the call comes to stage, they roll the car to the line, watch it pre-stage and run.
Then the crew takes over. The three-stage clutch is pulled and replaced. One run gets the metal plates so hot they warp. The spark plugs are changed after every run. On race day, this could happen seven times. The oil is also changed after every run to check for burning and metal flakes. Each change takes 15 quarts of high-performance Pennzoil.
The engine bearings are also changed after each run, which means breaking the engine down to get to the crankshaft and pistons.
"We measure each set of new bearings and test the temperatures of each exhaust with the on-board computer. From that we will regulate the fuel to each cylinder. You get maximum power when you're on the verge of burning pistons. Sometimes we go too far and need to change the pistons," says Lindsay.
"Racing has changed so much in the last few years. Without all of the high-tech equipment and the computers on-board it would be impossible to run the speeds we do (fast time for the car is 5.70 seconds through the quarter mile at 242 miles per hour). Of course, all of this costs money."
The cost, in fact, is what moved the Strasburgs from the nitromethane-burning AA-fuel class down to the alcohol-burning A-fuel. Even now, Lindsay figures it costs just under $75 per second to run the car. That's nothing compared to the nitro cars - a single run for a dragster burning nitro is between $1,200 and $1,500.
The fuel used in the dragster is nothing more than the same windshield-washer solvent used by everyday drivers, and is produced by a local Lehi company called Kemco.
"To run with the big boys at the national level, if you want to be competitive, takes a budget of around $2 million per year," Lindsay added.
"Someday we plan on getting there, but it will mean getting a sponsor. Of course, we're always looking for a sponsor. A good sponsor would take us to the next level. I know we're competitive on a national level. We've beaten several of the big sponsored teams," he said.
"But even if we don't, we'll keep on trying. It's in our blood."