SA pair headed to nationals (06/22/06)

BERNE — Adams Central senior Keith Lengerich and South Adams senior Bracton Eicher both said they have a hard time remembering when their interest in cars began, but neither have any doubt that cars are in their future.

Together, the two auto enthusiasts comprise a team that took first-place honors in the statewide Ford/AAA Student Auto Skills Contest May 5, and will proceed to the national level June 25-27 in Dearborn, Mich.

The road to this competition began in March, when students enrolled on automotive vocational programs statewide and took a standardized written test.

Gary McMillan, instructor for Area-18 Auto Mechanics, a vocational program with about 50 high school juniors and seniors from Jay, Adams and Wells Counties, identified Eicher and Lengerich as his highest-scoring students. Their combined scores ranked first in the state, easily securing the team a place in the state-wide competition, in which the top 10 teams test their hands-on abilities.

Each team was presented with a 2006 Ford Escape, each with the same bugged components, and teams were judged based on how well and how quickly the vehicle was fixed.

All cars that are “perfect cars,” meaning the problems have been fixed and no new ones created, vie for first place, and written test scores and total time figure in to the score.

Demerits, resulting in a 40-second penalty, can be handed out for wearing down the battery, running out of gas, replacing parts that weren’t faulty or leaving the vehicle untidy.

The competition, held in Indianapolis, was nerve-wracking to say the least, Eicher and Lengerich admitted, as there is little room for error.

“I hit my head on the (car) door, cut my finger, ran in to Keith,” said Eicher of the frantic beginning moments of the competition. “Things weren’t going too well at first.”

But the boys quickly found a groove, and uncertainly closed the hood of the sport-utility vehicle in about 25 minutes — 40 minutes before the next team and not even a third through the 90 minute time limit.

“We were done two minutes before we closed the hood, just checking stuff over and wondering what we missed,” said Lengerich.

And they did miss something, but the nine other teams missed the same repair, so a near-perfect car was good enough to take first place.

The boys unseated reigning champs Pike Central from Petersburg, Ind., who had held first-place honors for four consecutive years, and became the first team from South Adams-Area 18 to win state.

McMillan, who has taken a team to the state-wide competition thirteen out of the last fourteen years, said he was still taken aback by their finish.

“I knew they were a good group,” he said, “but to close our hoods first, yeah, that was a surprise.”

For their skills, the boys walked away with a combined $100,000 in scholarships to vocational schools nationwide, automotive tool sets from Snap-On and NAPA auto parts and a stack of business cards from technical school recruiters, who began approaching Lengerich and Eicher almost immediately after they finished the competition.

“It’s neat when they give you their card and want you to go to their school,” said Lengerich.

Though they still have a year of high school left, both students plan to continue their automotive education. Lengerich dreams of working on high-performance vehicles, while Eicher wants to continue with general automotive technician training and get additional training in business and sales.

But the time to daydream about future endeavors has been short.

For the better part of June, Lengerich and Eicher have been performing practice drills on a yellow 2005 Ford Mustang, provided by Moser Motors, Berne.

For four hours a day, five days a week, McMillan bugs the car, then wields a timer while the boys race to make repairs.

Their dedication is necessary; the stakes are higher at the national level.

Eicher and Lengerich will compete against 49 other teams, instead of the nine they faced at the state level, for another $6 million in scholarships. They will also take another written test, which will account for 40 percent of their final score.

McMillan also said these competitions can be rife with tricks, such as tools supplied for parts that needn’t be fixed, calling for unflappable confidence in one’s knowledge and ability.

“Hopefully in practice we get all the frustrations worked out,” he said.

But the pressure is on.

McMillan pauses for a moment, watching Eicher carefully smooth out carpeting in the trunk that was disturbed during a drill before stopping the timer.

“It can all come down to a wrinkle in the carpet.”[[In-content Ad]]