Editor’s Note: This is the first of a three-part column series submitted by Mount Airy City Schools Superintendent Kim Morrison about the system’s School-to-Work program.
NASCAR and Richard Childress Racing (RCR) have a vision for growing their own engineers, marketing specialists, drivers, and pit crew members. RCR boasts excellence with over 16 championships and 200 victories across NASCAR’s top three series. They want to see students through high school and college enter into STEAM careers in NASCAR.
“As these cars have become more technical, there just aren’t enough engineers to go around any more,” said Dr. Eric Warren, the recently named director of NASCAR programs for GM and former Head of Competition Racing for RCR — as well as Mount Airy High School graduate. “So there’s been a lot more crossover from F1 with guys that have a lot more high level experience. They see NASCAR, ever-increasingly, as a viable career technically.”
Officials with RCR picked Mount Airy City Schools to help realize the dream of more students in our area going into NASCAR as a career. Over the past few years with funding from Burroughs Wellcome Fund, an American non-profit research organization that funds STEM education, we have seen this vision become a reality.
Dr. Eric Warren has championed this partnership and Mount Airy City Schools has had 150 students participate in this three-year program with 45 students in the full internship program. Burroughs Wellcome Fund provided funding to pay for the logistics around this project. Students had Friday classes suspended and traveled to RCR to spend time with mentors in their area of interest such as graphic design, marketing, aerodynamic engineering, mechanical engineering, sales, and more. They conducted projects in real time that were tested on race day. They tweaked driving approaches with the team, learned to work in areas of engineering, such as steering dyno, suspension fatigue, components and chassis and durability testing. The students also worked with CNC machines (toolpath creation), lathes, and 5-axis machines, and machining of parts. They worked with body fabrication, IBPS measuring of the cars, and specialized fabrication equipment. They also worked in the body shop on body and paint work and general areas throughout the organization.
Just this past year, 10 of these interns were accepted into four year colleges in which they are majoring in Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematical (STEAM) careers. Many of the interns attribute their experiences with NASCAR as real world connections leading them to pursue a career in this field. We have former NASCAR interns attending UNC-Chapel Hill, NC State, Surry Community College, Forsyth Tech, East Carolina, and The University of North Carolina at Charlotte. The fields these students are pursuing are: mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, medical, mechanics, civil engineering, and marketing.
This three-year program has been comprehensive to ensure that all 150 students received a broad exposure to STEAM careers and see that many exciting opportunities are possible. The students participated in field trips to NASCAR sites, speedways, ZMAX dragways for experiments, culminating in a trip to the Daytona 500 including pit road and garage passes before the race. The students were involved in after-school clubs working with mentors to build racing simulators, try to break world records using RC cars, and solving real world problems.
Drew Tilley, current University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill student, stated that “RCR was an awesome experience and provided great career insight.” More than 25% of our 2020 senior class majored in STEAM related fields and we believe experiences of workforce development such as our Richard Childress Racing partnership are the reasons why.
Aerodynamic software and computer programming has changed the way racing happens today compared to 10 years ago.
Learning the fundamentals of racing at MAHS helps students be successful with internships at the Richard Childress Racing site.
Source: https://www.mtairynews.com
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