Minnesota Team Competes

Apollo High School students Colton Capretz – Sartell, MN and Blake Holmberg – St.Cloud, MN won the Minnesota ASE high school competition and went on to compete against 29 other teams from across the United States at the National Automotive Technology Competition April 2-4, 2018.   Greg Poganski – Instructor led his student team to an 22nd place finish at the competition in New York City.

In the weeks prior to the contest, the Minnesota team spent much of their spare time preparing for the contest challenges.  Since this years Minnesota car was a 2018 KIA Sorento, the team spent nearly three weeks preparing to for the “On Car” procedures portion of the competition at KIA of St. Cloud dealership and were assisted by Craig Brummer – Senior Service Technician and by Lucas Rogers the Service Director. Together they worked on the technical side of the car which included performing a thorough Pre-Delivery Inspection and working with the information and diagnostics systems.

Both Blake and Colten plan to continue their automotive education beyond high school.  Both students agreed that their experience will never be forgotten and indicated that the New York International Car Show was the most awesome display of cars they probably will ever see in their lives.

The National Automotive Technology Competition is a test of skill, a measure of knowledge, and a race against the clock all rolled into one. The competition itself lasts two days. The first day involves problem solving at workstations that mimic discrete systems on vehicles. That portion of the contest accounts for 60 percent of the team’s final score.  The second day’s competition is designed to test the student’s ability to diagnose and repair problems on the 2018 KIA Sorento.  Not only did the students have to repair the car, but also they had to document the concern, cause and correction on the repair order just as if the vehicle was a customer’s car at a dealership.

This nationally recognized competition– was developed in 1990 by the Greater New York Automobile Dealers Association to help curb the shortage of qualified automotive technicians and raise the level of vocational/technical education standards in the public-school system–is celebrating its 29th year in 2018 as the preeminent competition of its kind.   This year’s team was supported by the Minnesota Automobile Dealers Association.

Written by Mike Lehn, ASE Education Foundation Manager