My replacement at the high school called the house the other day while I was at work and told the Missus he wanted me to stop by. So I did. And this is what I found:
Apparently the Weld Shoppe boys are back in the high mileage contest business. He bought the car from another school that decided to stop participating in the contest. The car frame needs some serious work but it came with lots of parts and will be a good way for them to get their feet wet. I always enjoyed the contest. It was a lot of work for me and trying to get the car done on time and the headaches of taking a couple of guys down to Indy for an over-nighter was probably a contributing factor to my heart attack but it was worth it. I don't know what my work schedule will be in April, but if I can, I'll head down and root for the home team. The link to my old blog when I was running the show is still over there on the sidebar if you want to learn more about the contest and what the class did in the past, by the way.
They also built a Texas style BBQ cooker. There's a fire pot on the left side, the smoke then goes along the bottom of the cooker, comes up into the chamber where the meat is and then goes out the stack. The only way to cook brisket.
He figured out how to get some grant money, so will be getting some new tools and equipment soon. It's good to see the program in such capable hands. The average person has no idea how valuable these shop classes are. Remember the $100K wage earnings from the last post? This is where it starts. You need qualified people for your manufacturing business? This is where it starts. Who knows, with the shortage of skilled people, maybe one of these days they'll go back to having technical high schools like Chicago Vocational or Hammond Tech used to be.
I'll keep you posted on the progress of the little car. Have a good weekend.
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