newsminer.com

Photo by Eric Engman

Photo by Eric Engman

Photo by Eric Engman

Photo by Eric Engman

Austin Sipes and Justin Grover worked hard all year for one chance in Detroit.

The recent North Pole High School graduates traveled to the hometown of Ford Motors to compete in the national Ford/AAA Student Auto Skills Competition June 21-24. Their automotive technology instructor, Jerry Million, said students can only go to nationals once.

“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime deal,” Million said.

To earn their all-expenses paid trip to take on the best teams in the nation, the North Pole team had to defeat Alaskan teams at the state competition held earlier this year. Teams from as close as Hutchison High School to as far as Juneau converged in Anchorage to take a 50-question written exam and complete a hands-on exercise to see whose auto skills were the sharpest.

The exam questions were composed of technical questions about the different systems in cars. The hands-on portion involved the top two written test scorers, a 90-minute time limit and a car with more than 10 mystery faults ranging from the engine to the mirrors.

“North Pole was the only team to have a car drive out with all of the faults fixed,” Million said.

The North Pole team: Sipes, Grover, Cameron Crawford, Peter Copley, Daniel Stewart and Jesse Swenson, took top honors in both sections.

The top two members, Sipes and Grover, then moved on to national level. “These are the top two guys in the state,” Million said.

The last time North Pole went to the National competition was in 2006. At this year’s competition, Sipes and Grover landed in the 80th percentile in the written portion but were knocked out of the overall Top 10 rankings when they misdiagnosed a air conditioning problem.

Million teaches three classes that appeal to students who just want to know what to say to mechanics to students who want to want to turn mechanics into a career. The courses build on each other and add complexity. Students start in semester-long courses, small engineers and automotives then the final course is the yearlong automotive technique.

The last course helps prepare students for the competition while they work toward their National Automotive Technicians Education Foundation certification, which Million said would prepare students to work in garages straight out of school.

The national competition steps up the complexity from the state-level competition and has participants answering a 100-question test then moving on to a new 2008 Ford Focus with even more mystery problems.

To prepare for the competition, Sipes and Grover spent their summer studying car-releated materials and familiarzing themselves with a Ford Focus borrowed from Seekins Ford Lincoln-Mercury Dealership. But it also helps that the two have a longtime love of automotives. Grover said his father worked on cars when he was younger and his interest was further piqued when he accquired a 1975 Chevy Nova.

Both Grover and Sipes said working with their hands is another reason why they find the subject interesting.

“I liked old junk and I could never trick anyone to work on them with me,” Sipes said.

Looking ahead, Grover said he would like study heavy diesel mechanics because of the abundence of heavy diesel vehicles in Alaska. Sipes said he isn’t sure what facet of mechanics he wants to focus on but he wants to stay in that field.

In his very near future, Million said he has two female students who have an interest in the contest and will be part of his upperlevel course next year.

“I’m hoping to get that girl team off of the ground,” Million said.