Drivers aren’t the only ones who have to be fast

Monday, Oct. 29, 2007 | 7:10 a.m.

Drag racing is a sport that is as much about time as speed. In the premier categories of the National Hot Rod Association, the nitromethane-burning Top Fuel and Funny Cars rocket down the quarter-mile strip in less than five seconds.

Drivers are especially under the gun, as they must react to the starting light in less time than it takes most of us to blink.

But the drivers competing in the ACDelco Las Vegas NHRA Nationals at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway this past weekend weren't the only ones on the clock. The teams that prepare the 8,000-horsepower nitro cars are under as much pressure to perform as the men who drive them.

In the amount of time it takes most people to get the oil changed on their street car at the local Jiffy Lube, Rod Fuller's team either rebuilt or completely replaced the engine in his Caterpillar-sponsored Top Fuel dragster. And they did it seven times during the three-day race weekend.

Because of the enormous stress placed on virtually every moving part of a Top Fuel engine, they must be at least partially rebuilt - or replaced - after each run. Over the course of a typical NHRA race weekend, that means rebuilds after each of four qualifying passes on Friday and Saturday, and up to three times - for the two teams fortunate enough to advance to the final round of eliminations, as Fuller's did - on Sunday.

Fuller, a Las Vegas resident, made the most of the final power plant his team installed, winning the Top Fuel final with a pass of 4.531 seconds at 327.82 mph against Doug Kalitta. He also holds a 52-point lead in the Top Fuel season standings with one race remaining.

Mike Guger, Fuller's assistant crew chief, said the team takes a different approach to servicing the dragster's engine on race day than it does after qualifying runs. On Sunday teams are given only 75 minutes between races to work on the engine, whereas a team may have up to two and a half hours between runs during Friday and Saturday qualifying.

"In qualifying, we'll try and leave the same motor in," Guger said. "You have just a little more time between rounds so you can look at everything. On race day, since the time is so tight, what we'll do is we'll just put a fresh (engine) in.

"The reason we do that is, if we start taking it apart and you get 15 or 20 minutes into it and then you discover something's wrong, all of a sudden you're 15 or 20 minutes behind getting your other motor in."

Following Fuller's second-round elimination run Sunday, his crew actually started the process of replacing the engine while the car still was at the top end of the racetrack. Once they towed it back to the pit, six crew members descended on the car from the top, bottom and rear in what could best be described as organized chaos.

"Everybody hustles pretty good," Guger said. "Everybody knows what everybody's doing and you don't have to think too much."

In 12 minutes (!) they had removed the engine from the chassis. Two minutes later they had the new engine in and had begun reattaching the disconnected lines. Less than 30 minutes after pulling the dragster into the pit, a crew member was adding oil to the engine, which had pretty much been "buttoned up."

Less than an hour after pitting - 47 minutes, to be exact - Fuller jumped into the cockpit of his dragster and the team began the process of warming up and tuning the new engine.

"Usually it takes less than an hour to replace one once we get started," Guger said. "It surprises me sometimes. We'll come back here and do everything we do and then I'll go back (into the hauler) and they'll start the car and I'll think, 'Wow, that didn't take long.' "