to Read the Article! - Hot Rodders of Tomorrow

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The Hot Rodders of Tomorrow
program teaches engine-building skills and much more.
By Patricia Kaowthumrong
A
ileen Melendez, a high-school senior at
Loara High School in Anaheim, Calif.,
considered pursuing a career in music
before the Hot Rodders of Tomorrow program helped her realize she had the heart
and mind of a gearhead.
“My biggest dream is to work for
NASCAR, to become an engineer and work
with the vehicles on a high-performance
level,” says Melendez, who has won more
than $20,000 in scholarships through
her participation in the nationwide high
school engine-building contest.
When she met Loara High School auto
tech instructor Russ Bacarella, Melendez
was focused on playing the French horn
in the school band. Bacarella, the instructor for the Hot Rodders team, noticed
she was good at “wrenching on cars” from
working with her dad on the family’s 1953
F-150 and asked her to participate in the
competition.
“As soon as I got into automotive, I
realized I liked it way more. Last year, I
The Hot Rodders of Tomorrow program is designed to encourage high school teens to take an interest in
the performance aftermarket by providing a series of competitions that exhibit their skill at breaking down
and reassembling a small-block Chevrolet engine. (Photos courtesy Hot Rodders of Tomorrow)
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decided to quit the band and dedicate all
my time to automotive,” Melendez says.
“I like that it allows me to work with my
hands. It’s very visual and easy for me to
understand. It just clicks.”
Engines of Opportunity
Melendez hopes to attend the University
of Northwestern Ohio after high school.
Now competing for the fourth year in
the youth program, Melendez almost has
enough scholarship funding to attend her
dream school.
The Hot Rodders of Tomorrow Engine
Challenge was originally developed by
Jim Bingham, president/CEO of Winner’s
Circle Speed and Custom, in 2008 as a
special event for the Race and Performance
Expo in St. Charles, Ill. The program is
designed to encourage high school teens
to take an interest in the performance
aftermarket by providing a series of competitions that exhibit their skill at breaking down and reassembling a small-block
Chevrolet engine.
“When we were putting together the
show in 2008, we talked about putting
together an engine challenge to get youth
involved in the automotive field,” says
Rodney Bingham, director of Hot Rodders
of Tomorrow.
What started as a small competition
with five participating high schools from
the Chicago area has blossomed into a
nationwide competition with eight divisions. More than 2,000 students have participated in the program since its inception
five years ago.
Hot Rodders of Tomorrow now has
eight events, including a national championship—which will be held this year at
the annual Performance Racing Industry
(PRI) Show in Indianapolis—and the backing of 40 manufacturing sponsors.
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5/2/13 3:13 PM
Thanks to financial support from performance manufacturers, educational institutions, the Specialty Equipment Market
Association (SEMA), the Performance
Warehouse Association, the AERA Engine
Builders Association and other organizations, the engine-building program has
cultivated more than $6 million in scholarship funding over the years for students
attending the University of Northwestern
Ohio, School of Automotive Machinists
and Ohio Technical College.
Rodney Bingham credits much of
the program’s success to his father Jim
Bingham’s enthusiasm and the added
support of Vic Edelbrock, chairman of
Edelbrock Corp, who witnessed the first
competition at the inaugural Race and
Performance Expo.
“Vic dragged my dad to the back corner
and said, ‘this is what our industry needs,’”
Bingham said. “Not to say we wouldn’t
have kept doing it, but if Vic didn’t get so
excited about it, it wouldn’t have grown.”
Edelbrock, in partnership with SEMA
CEO Chris Kersting, helped the organization establish the “Showdown at SEMA”
national championship at the 2009 SEMA
Show, a tradition that was maintained for
four years before the move this year to PRI,
which SEMA now also oversees.
Team Motive Gear won its third straight national championship with an average time of 21:24 minutes at the 2012 “Showdown at SEMA.” This year, the national finals will be held at the PRI Show in
Indianapolis. (Photos courtesy Hot Rodders of Tomorrow)
In addition to scholarship money
and the championship title, NASCAR
Performance and Edelbrock included
a trip to Charlotte, N.C., for NASCAR
Acceleration Weekend as part of the prize
package for the Loara High School 2012
championship-winning team.
Speed Teams
Hot Rodders teams consisting of five
students and one instructor compete to
disassemble and reassemble an engine with
aftermarket components in the shortest
amount of time while avoiding penalties
for issues such as dropped components,
improper disassembly or assembly, and
poor sportsmanship.
“They get to feel what it’s like to be
a high school quarterback, per se, when
people are actually cheering for them,” says
Bingham of the crowds that the teen engine
builders draw during the competitions.
Bacarella, who led Loara High School
to three national championship wins during his time at the school, says he treated
the Hot Rodders of Tomorrow program
like any other high school sports team. No
prerequisites such as mechanical knowledge or motor skills were required.
“It still blows other instructors’ minds
how fast Russ got it done. He almost had it
choreographed where the kids knew where
they had to be at a certain time, and it’s
almost like a dance,” Bingham says.
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We’re saving high school
automotive programs.
When Bacarella first competed in 2008,
he says his team qualified at around 60
minutes. In 2012, his team qualified at
a national record-setting level of 19:11
minutes.
“Every instructor has a method for disassembly and assembly, but I look at people
and specific things in them,” he says. “I
have a very specific placement of people
and process for building the engine.”
In past years, if a team ranked No. 1 at
an event, it automatically qualified to participate in the national finals. However, the
competition switched to a timed format in
2013. Now any team that beats a time of
35 minutes is automatically in the finals,
Bingham says.
Regional competitions at events such as
the Lane Automotive
Car Show allow high
school teams to compete in front of crowds
as part of the Hot
Rodders of Tomorrow
engine building challenge. Top qualifiers
then go on to national
events. (Photos courtesy
Motor State Distributing)
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Bacarella, Melendez and other members
of Loara won their third straight national
championship with an average time of
21:24 minutes at the 2012 “Showdown
at SEMA.”
Now the West Coast operations manager for Hot Rodders and an instructor at
Cypress Community College in Garden
Grove, Calif., Bacarella hopes the program
continues bringing awareness to the opportunities in vocational and career technical
education.
“Vocational education is just not
financed the way it needs to be in order
for these kids to be successful in that area,”
Bacarella says.
Hot Rodders of Tomorrow has even
helped save high school automotive programs that were threatened by lack of
interest or funding. By stimulating interest
among students, Bingham says the program has increased enrollment in automotive courses, thus saving them from the
chopping block.
“We’re saving high school automotive programs. When we set out, that
wasn’t one of our goals. We didn’t even
know there was a problem until we got
involved,” Bingham says.
More than Engine Building
Ryan Gortney, a Hot Rodder’s instructor at the Elkhart Area Career Center that
serves 21 area high schools in four counties and two states, also has participated
in the Hot Rodders of Tomorrow Engine
Challenge since its inception.
Gortney says Hot Rodders encourages
students to maintain high grades, good
attendance and vital employability skills.
“The value I see as an instructor is that
the students build great teamwork skills,
great camaraderie, great discipline—a lot
of the traits that they’re going to need
throughout life in order to be successful
in whatever career field that they choose,”
he says. “The teamwork aspect of it especially—there isn’t a job out there that I am
June 2013
5/2/13 11:38 AM
aware of that you are not going to have to
work with others in some capacity.
“You can be fast at what you do, but it
takes working side-by-side with the other
four individuals (on the team) in order
for you to be highly effective and highly
successful. Most people’s jaws drop when
they see it for the first time,” Gortney says.
Scott Wahlstrom, marketing manager
at Motor State Distributing, says Hot
Rodders of Tomorrow also educates students about the vast career opportunities
available in the performance and racing
industries. He says it also clarifies the misconception that careers in the automotive
industry have to involve working in service
or body shops.
“If you have a passion for hot rods,
and performance and racing, there are
all kinds of opportunities, whether it be
in sales, accounting, marketing, product
development or working for race teams,”
Wahlstrom says. “There is a wealth of job
opportunities that students have never
even given a thought to.”
Motor State Distributing and Allstar
Performance both sponsor Hot Rodders
teams, and parent company Lane
Automotive has supported the program fully from the beginning. Lane
Automotive/Motor State hosts a Hot
Rodders of Tomorrow competition at its
annual car show, which usually allows 12
to 15 student teams to mingle with more
than 190 manufacturers, Wahlstrom says.
Wahlstrom, who was educated in
graphic design, says he personally would
have benefited from the career awareness
the program generates.
“I did not know I could pursue a career
like this in the performance industry; I just
didn’t think about it,” he says. “My sister
happened to cut out an ad that led me to
Lane Automotive and Motor State, and
that was almost 24 years ago. I found my
perfect fit, but it was by chance.”
Lou Lobsinger Jr. of PROFORM /
Specialty Auto Parts USA Inc., a Detroitarea company that has sponsored the program for the past four years, says the program has helped build relationships with
schools and technical institutes.
“Our motivation is simple; we want to
inspire the next generation of hot rodders,”
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The engine challenge not
only teaches competitors building skills, it also
introduces them to the
automotive aftermarket
and the variety of exciting
careers it offers.
he explains, noting that the company also
offers engine building tools and dress-up
parts at no cost to the participating teams.
“This program is important on many
levels,” Lobsinger notes. “The obvious
one is getting these kids plugged into our
industry via the skilled trades. The other
intangible is it creates excitement and
interest in the automotive aftermarket. As
long as there are cars, we’re all going to
find ways to make them look better and go
faster. Now, we gotta get that next generation fired up about the industry!”
(Photo courtesy
Motor State
Distributing)
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Investing In the Future
Wahlstrom says Hot Rodders also provides valuable networking opportunities.
Teams that qualify for national championships are required to visit with sponsoring manufacturers at the shows and learn
about their companies.
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“It’s not just all about practicing and
tearing an engine down and building it
back up. They’re trying to show these kids
a life career opportunity here,” he says.
Because Hot Rodders of Tomorrow
(www.hotroddersoftomorrow.com) is
100-percent run by volunteers, Motor
State Distributing assists in any way
it can, including helping with staffing
requirements and giving employees time
to volunteer.
And the credibility of the program continues to rise as more people in the industry get involved, Wahlstrom adds.
“It’s really a pull-together of the entire
industry,” he says. “I think our biggest
contribution is that we are very passionate about this and what it means for us in
the future. It is our future, and we have to
invest in that.”
Although Hot Rodders has gained a
large, committed staff of volunteers on the
West Coast—as well as another trailer so
officials don’t have to transport the competition engines from the Midwest to the
West Coast—funding is still an issue for
the organization.
“A challenge is controlled growth. We
could add another 50 events tomorrow,
but we just don’t have the funding for
that,” says Bingham, who attends every
competition and is in charge of transporting and setting up the donated competition engines.
“We use 100-percent volunteer staff, so
we have to be cautious about how much
we use them, because they only have so
many hours they can volunteer,” he adds.
But he says the outcome is well worth
the hard work. Students like Melendez,
who have competed in Hot Rodders of
Tomorrow, have gone on to become
NASCAR pit crew members, diesel mechanics and engineers.
“My favorite part is getting to meet
all of the sponsors and everybody that’s
involved with the program like all the car
enthusiasts,” Melendez says. “And working
on what I like to do and getting rewarded
for it is the best feeling ever.”
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