Three Rigby students win automotive competition for the first time in school’s history
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RIGBY — For the first time in an automobile competition’s 34-year history, a team of three students from Rigby High School won.
The first-place team in the Weber State University Automotive Contest consisted of three seniors, Caden Waddoups, Dylan Arneson and Drew Denning.
“It’s fun to see these kids succeed. A lot of them aren’t in sports programs, so they don’t get the opportunities to compete and have that feeling of winning, so this is their time to shine, and then it’s also nice to see, ‘Oh you actually did learn that thing I taught you!'” said Keegan Hunter, an automotive instructor at Rigby High School.
The competition took place on Friday in Utah and included 14 schools from Utah, Oregon and Idaho.
The Weber State University Automotive Contest takes place annually. High school seniors compete for scholarships, tools and a vehicle for their school. The competition has two parts — the qualifying round and the championship round.
The qualifying round consists of a written exam about the automotive industry. The top schools that succeed in the written exam are then invited to the championship round, which is a hands-on challenge with different stations.
“Each station was set up with a car of some kind. They had a brand new hybrid Mustang, brand new electric KIA car — so newer stuff. And at each station, they (the students) were doing something. There was a steering and suspension station, there was a couple of engine performance stations, engine repair, hybrid, there were a couple of electrical stations,” Hunter said. “So they are actually diagnosing some problems on the car … or they are demonstrating how to perform a procedure on the car.”
Hunter said each station had a professional judge. There were people representing dealerships, manufacturer representatives from Chrysler and salespeople.
“As you are going through the procedures and diagnosing, you are getting scored on how well you problem solve, how well you work together, how well you understand the tools and the systems,” Hunter said.
Hunter told EastIdahoNews.com he is proud of his students and thinks it’s awesome they won first place.
“The students themselves came away with some toolboxes and some professional tools. Then our program here in Rigby High School — they are giving us a 2013 car that we can train on and use, which is good because, I mean, it’s hard to get newer cars for the students to train on. These are the kinds of opportunities we need,” he said.