The key, Jonathan James well tell you, is concentrating on nothing but the light. That, he says, is all you need to be concerned with.

Don’t worry about the other three snowmobile racers lined up beside you.

Don’t worry that in a matter of seconds, you’ll be skimming across an icy sheet at about 125 mph.

Don’t worry about what could happen then, if …

Don’t worry about any of that. Just focus on the light.

“They have a Christmas tree light system,” the 37-year-old Eddington man said on Wednesday, as he and Kurt Thomas of Hermon tried out various racing setups designed to milk an extra tenth of a second out of a 1,000cc pro stock rocket.

“You get your engagement up right, your rpms, and just concentrate on the tree,” James says.

Engagement, you may want to know, is that instant when the clutch grabs a belt and your 660-foot rocket ride begins. Make that his 660-foot rocket ride. You and me? We may want to sit this one out.

Key the throttle up to the breaking point … that point when the rpms hover just below engagement, the engine starts to howl (but has yet to truly scream) … hold it … and when the light changes, hold on.

“You want to be hanging on pretty decent,” admits James, who has been a driver for Thomas’ Bangor Motorsports team since 1997.

The Bangor Motorsports team travels to Canada a few times a winter, enjoying the competition of the Maritime Snowmobile Racing Federation.

In places like Amherst, Nova Scotia, and Shawinigan, Quebec, they’ll unload, tinker, race, and then make the long drive home.

Not because they’re trying to get rich. But because they love the adrenaline rush of racing.

“It’s for bragging rights,” James says.

For Thomas, it’s simply something he grew up doing.

“It’s my hobby. It’s something I’ve done all my life, basically,” Thomas says. “It’s just fun to get in the outdoors and race around with the guys on the weekends.”

Before takeoff, James snugs himself forward as far as he can get, like a rodeo bull rider waiting for the chute to open. Make that a 260 horsepower bull. He hunches his head forward with eyes on his rpm gauge. Then, for five seconds or so, he scares the living crap out of you.

Not him. You. If, that is, you’re not a speed demon or a thrill seeker and the sight of a nearly levitating sled makes you a bit nervous.

“Did you bring your helmet?” he asks, returning to the starting line after reaching a top speed of 125 mph over the one-eighth-mile track … and completing the run in about 51/2 seconds.

No. Thank God.

“Oddly enough, as you ride it more, you kind of get used to it,” says Thomas, who owns Bangor Motorsports, sponsors the team, and began racing sleds in Presque Isle back in 1971. “It doesn’t really feel that fast.”

To him. Or to James. But Thomas realizes others might have a different reaction.

“If you were to jump on and squeeze it, no question it would shock you or scare you or whatever,” Thomas said with a smile. “He’s done it long enough with me that he’s used to it and it’s not that big of a deal.”

Wednesday’s order of business was simple, yet frustrating: Figure out how to milk those magic tenths of a second from the new engine package the team installed this year.

It is quickly apparent that is not your basic mom-and-pop operation.

Ignition timing might be an issue … so Thomas fires up his laptop, reconfigures that timing, then plugs his IBM Thinkpad into a port on the Arctic Cat Thundercat to make some adjustments.

“Hard to imagine that you’d lug around a laptop for a snowmobile,” Thomas says.

And that’s not all.

Another unit, which sits in view of the driver, digitally tracks not only engine rpm and top speed on a run, but also tells you the exact temperature of the exhaust gas. At the end of the run, everyone huddles in front of the display to see a virtual replay of the event, by the numbers.

To you or me? Not important. To Thomas and James, in search of that elusive tenth of a tick, it could mean everything.

“This is our first stab at the high tech stuff, and we’re struggling a little bit, but it’s coming,” Thomas says.

The difference between success and failure in the sport is, as you could imagine, slight.

There’s a huge difference, Thomas points out, between being fast and being quick. In snowmobile drag racing, quick is key.

“We’re not really as concerned with top speed as we are from point A to point B, getting there the quickest,” he says. “We might be one mile an hour faster or slower at top speed, but if you get there quicker, you win the race.”

And if you get up to that top speed too slowly, that’s no good, either.

One late twitch on the throttle, one wrong choice of which high-performance part to use, and a promising weekend can turn into nothing more than a long road trip.

“Just concentrate on the tree,” James says, returning to the theme. “That’s the whole race, the first couple of seconds. If you don’t leave with the rest of ’em, put it on the trailer.”

John Holyoke can be reached at jholyoke@bangordailynews.net or by calling 990-8214 or 1-800-310-8600.