ORLANDO, Fla. (June 6, 2013) — One hundred top high school automotive tech students from around the country plan to compete in the 64th Ford/AAA Student Auto Skills Competition National Finals, June 9–11, in Detroit.
The annual competition features high school auto tech students from all 50 states, with each state represented by a two-student team and their high school instructor. This year there are 98 male and two female students who will take a written exam and compete in a timed event in which they race against the clock and each other to identify glitches and repair deliberately installed "bugs" in identical 2013 Ford Explorer XLTs. The team with the best combined written and hands-on score will win the national championship.
The national finalists were chosen after nearly 13,000 high school juniors and seniors took an online exam testing their automotive technology knowledge in January. The winning team picks up scholarships and prizes, as well as a weeklong job shadow experience with the Wood Brothers Racing's 21 Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Fusion team and 2011 Daytona 500 Winner Trevor Bayne leading up to and during the Coke Zero 400 in Daytona Beach, Fla., in July.
Organizers said the Ford/AAA Student Auto Skills Competition enables many of the participants to embark on promising careers in the automotive repair industry repairing both computer and mechanical components in today's advanced vehicles. Both the national and the state-wide competitions are organized with the support of AAA Inc. and Ford Motor Co. personnel, local automotive instructors and the AAA Approved Auto Repair program.
The competition awards nearly $12 million in scholarships to thousands of high school auto students, including the title winners, each year.
For more information on the competition, visit its website.