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American Morning

High School Auto Mechanics National Finals Taking Place in D.C. Today

Aired June 18, 2001 - 09:14   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: With the summer driving season now getting under way in earnest, Washington, D.C. remains a major tourist destination. And that's where the national finals of the student auto mechanics competition are being held today.

Our Patty Davis is there -- Patty.

PATTY DAVIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Leon, the starting gun just went off and, in fact, the students ran to their cars. They are now jumping in here. These are the best high school auto mechanics in the country. Fifty-one cars here, two students from each state and the District of Columbia looking at their cars.

And we have with us Dave McClain, now, of Ford.

You were the 1973 winner of this contest, that's right? Cars have changed a bit since then?

DAVE MCCLAIN, FORD MOTOR COMPANY: Just a little bit

DAVIS: And what -- what's the strategy? Let's look at -- we have -- we're standing by the North Carolina team right now. What's the strategy now as you're heading into this contest here? What's the first thing you're going to be looking at, Dave?

MCCLAIN: Well, what happens is that the high school automotive instructors work with these students and they help train them on how to diagnose today's automobiles. And typically what will happen is that they will have -- one student will be responsible for checking one system on a car, the other student will be responsible for checking something else. So they have very much a plan of attack where they go after trying to find the problems in the cars.

DAVIS: Now let's show the North Carolina team in action here, Martin (ph). We can show -- what -- now what is the gentleman doing?

MCCLAIN: He is checking the fuses. He's going to make sure that all of the circuits have got the proper amount of power. And probably what's happened is that they have checked something inside the car, maybe its headlights, maybe it's a cigarette lighter, something like that, and they found that something's not working. So now they're out trying to find out and diagnose where the problem lies. DAVIS: And this is one of three woman who's there -- checking in the driver's seat there. What is she doing? This is one of the three woman in the contest. What's she doing?

MCCLAIN: Well, I don't know exactly what she's doing, I can't see, but she is probably working with the student under the hood to see exactly what he is doing, whether that fixes the problem or not. So I don't want to bother them. I don't want to get too close. They're under enough pressure as it is.

DAVIS: OK.

MCCLAIN: I can certainly remember when I was doing it, I had butterflies for sure.

DAVIS: How tough is this? How many bugs have you all put in these cars?

MCCLAIN: Well, I won't divulge that at this time, but there any many. There's -- there are many bugs, and the idea is to show their diagnostic skills.

DAVIS: But we're not going to the point where you've got to lift the transmission out or something like that?

MCCLAIN: No. No, we're very safe in what we do here. We make them wear safety glasses, and you see every competitor has to wear those. We typically limit the malfunctions to under the hood or under the dash so that no one has a possibility of getting hurt.

DAVIS: All right. Thank you very much. Dave McClain of Ford.

MCCLAIN: Thank you.

DAVIS: Now these high school students have 90 minutes from now to diagnose and fix the problems with each of these cars. The champion crowned at about 11:00 Eastern Time today -- $1,000 scholarship for each of those who win.

Patty Davis, CNN, live on the Washington Mall.

HARRIS: All right. Thanks, Patty.

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