A peculiar look came over her face as Samantha Stark began doing the mental math silently to herself. The subject was how many engines do the Starks have as a family on their property?

Her answer: A lot.

And that about sums up a family who could be easily characterized as a family of gearheads.

The Starks are a racing family. It’s that simple. The parents, Matt and Sue Stark took after their respective fathers, Ed Stark and Leonard Espe each and got behind the wheel and now their three children — the twins Samantha and Kaitlyn — and son Jake are all doing the same.

Matt and Sue don’t race anymore, but it’s obvious that it’s something that heavily influenced their children’s lives.

“We knew if they wanted to try it we would let them,” Sue said from the deck of their home on gasoline alley, a road that has several racing families on it just west of River Oaks Golf Course.

A lot of the kids will to race came from watching their parents race when they were younger. Samantha was the first, starting last year in the Street Stocks class.

“I always liked watching my dad,” she said. “I always kind of thought about it when I was younger.

Kaitlyn was next in line along with younger brother Jake beginning this year. The idea was to have Kaitlyn and Jake share a Hornet-class car, but it was evident pretty quick there would be a third car in the mix.

“They were supposed to go every other week, but Kaitlyn didn’t like the manual transmission,” Sue said.

“My mom drove a few times and I liked it and the go-carts,” Kaitlyn explained. “That kind of got me into it too.”

There was no other course for Jake, 13, who had begun driving go-carts early.

“I wanted to copy my dad,” Jake said. “It’s the only thing I wanted to do.”

All three want to continue what they’ve been doing, with perhaps Jake holding on to the most specific dreams of driving in all of the classes offered in the area, including the powerful and expensive WISSOTA Late Model series.

There is more here then simply getting a car together, painting it the orange and blue detailing the family seems to have adopted, and getting on the track.

This is truly a family ambition.

“It’s good family time,” Matt said.

Matt and Sue also use racing as a responsibility-teaching tool.

“They know if there is work to be done they have to be out there working on the car,” Sue said. “So they are usually out there helping each other.”

Naturally, with a sport as dangerous as racing, there are moments of fear, but the family takes it in stride. In fact during the entire time one or more of the kids have been racing, there has only been one time Sue was worried.

“I’ve held my breath only once,” she said with a laugh. “Kaitlyn rolled Sam’s car in a powder puff race.”

Kaitlyn explained the wreck came about as she was going for the lead. The car hit some wet grass and it kind of cascaded from there.

Watching her sister roll hit Samantha pretty hard at the time. “Oh my gosh, I was the most terrified person on earth. I didn’t care about the car.”

Racing will be a part of the Starks for quite some time given how much the kids want to keep doing it, but will the parents ever pick it up again?

Sue admits she may get behind the wheel again, but more than likely it will be behind a demolition derby car.

The future is a little more open where Matt’s concerned.

“You never say never,” Matt said of either him or Sue racing again. “When the kids are gone there’s a little talk.”