Six Evanston Township High School students competed in a Tire Changing Competition on Tuesday, organized by two local nonprofit organizations, the Trade Collective and the Community Garage. The event concluded a monthlong initiative promoting the auto industry to students.
[competitors working on tire change]
JOHN SANTIAGO: Welcome to the Trade Collective. Welcome to our Automotive Month’s finale, the tire contest.
DESIREE LUO: That was John Santiago. He’s the executive director of the Community Garage, a local nonprofit organization that aims to educate young people in motorsports, automotive work and everything cars.
In a recent initiative, Santiago — who’s affectionately known as “Dr. John” — and the Community Garage partnered with Evanston Township High School and the Trade Collective, a fellow nonprofit, to host a Tire Changing Competition on Tuesday.
[music]
DESIREE LUO: From The Daily Northwestern, I’m Desiree Luo. This is Everything Evanston, a podcast covering all things Evanston.
The Tire Changing Competition wrapped up the Community Garage’s first ever Automotive Month. The month was filled with four weeks of programming to educate young community members about opportunities to work with cars. And the competition itself featured three teams of two ETHS students.
JOHN SANTIAGO: We are doing a tire rotation. A tire rotation is a very, very basic service that auto techs will — will learn to do very early in their career. It’s like bread and butter … There are two elements that the teams will be graded on: One is their knowledge, and the other one is their speed.
To my right, we have Jason Nelson. He is an auto tech with GreatWater 360 Auto Care. He’s come in to help judge and evaluate the kids and make sure that they are safe.
DESIREE LUO: Nelson was one of two judges evaluating the competition.
JASON NELSON: There’s always gonna be a car to fix. No matter when, no matter anything. There will always be a car to fix, and you’ll always have a job.
DESIREE LUO: Here’s what he thought of the students’ performances, speaking as a professional.
JASON NELSON: A lot better than I expected … Everybody had their own different styles of jacking up the car in a safe way.
DESIREE LUO: But ultimately, one team came out on top.
JOHN SANTIAGO: Scores have been averaged. The times have been converted to points, and everything triple-checked. The winners of the first annual ETHS Automotive Month Tire Competition … Team Goobers.
[cheers]
DESIREE LUO: Team Goobers, composed of ETHS seniors Jesse Dush-Hart and George Swinand, changed all four tires on the car in under 10 minutes. They had two prize options: a college tuition grant to Oakton College or a weekend of high performance driver’s ed at a local racetrack.
GEORGE SWINAND: We would like track time.
JESSE DUSH-HART: I want track time.
[cheers and laughter]
DESIREE LUO: The tire changing competition and Automotive Month as a whole are part of the Trade Collective’s broader goal to promote craft industries to students.
For Tris O’Shaughnessy, the Trade Collective’s executive director, these initiatives give students exposure to different career paths that they can follow after high school.
TRIS O’SHAUGHNESSY: College is one path. College could be a future path, but you can also do things with one of the passions that you have around cars, or woodworking, or welding or carpentry. There’s just a lot of different ways to look at your next steps.
DESIREE LUO: As for the six students, they got involved with the competition through ETHS’s very own E-Town Turners Auto Club, and they’ve been honing their skills for the past month. But the contest was only a fraction of what Automotive Month offered ETHS students.
TRIS O’SHAUGHNESSY: They planned a whole slate of events, which included four different speakers at lunchtime at the hub. Started out with getting a car into the middle of the H-Hall, which is right in front of the superintendent’s office, which was a feat. One of the winners on the Goobers team, Jesse, works for the Autobarn. He actually got to drive the car out of H-Hall, which just cracks me up every time I think about it.
JESSE DUSH-HART: I’ve been working with Dr. John for almost four years now, when I joined the Auto Club at ETHS freshman year.
DESIREE LUO: That’s Jesse.
JESSE DUSH-HART: Since then, he’s helped me get on the race track. He’s helped me drive my car and work on my own car, and I’ve helped him work on his race car, just learned a lot about vehicles and mechanics, things like that.
DESIREE LUO: And the auto industry might just be something he’s considering as a career path.
JESSE DUSH-HART: I’m definitely gonna do something with mechanics and cars in general. I might study engineering and then move into automotives.
[music]
DESIREE LUO: From The Daily Northwestern, I’m Desiree Luo. Thanks for listening to another episode of Everything Evanston. This episode was reported and produced by me, Desiree Luo.
The Audio Editor is Ruby Dowling. The Multimedia Managing Editors are Yong-Yu Huang, Femi Horrall and Jonah McClure. The Editor in Chief is Emily Lichty.
Our theme music is “Revolution” by Xennial, used under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License and provided by the Free Music Archive.
Follow us on X and Instagram @thedailynu.
Email: [email protected]
X: @desiree_luo
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