An Auto Motive : Race Drivers Steer Quartz Hill Students Toward a Career and Away From the Mean Streets
It begins as just another routine day for the 15 boys in Mr. Engstrom’s fifth-period automotive lab at Quartz Hill High. The youths take a quiz on the “Fundamentals of Magnetism.” Then they do grunt work in the bowels of a compact Nissan. Nothing very exciting or glamorous, just future auto mechanics dissecting a fuel-injected carburetor and trying to understand the mysteries of vapor lock.
Then Mike Winchester and Will Harper drive up with their trailers. Class is over. It’s time to visit fantasy land: the interior of a genuine, battle-dented stock car. Maybe it sort of looks like dad’s old clunker, but there are roll bars inside and a monster motor under the hood. The boys climb into the streamlined cockpit, imagine the beast underneath them, and rock to the music that roars from Harper’s 355-horsepower engine.
Winchester, wearing a bright blue, fire-retardant racing jumpsuit, and Harper are at Quartz Hill to get boys interested in auto racing, the high-tech end of auto mechanics, and by the time they leave about a dozen boys have signed up to be apprentice members of pit crews at Saugus Speedway this racing season. They will make trips, wear team coveralls and caps and learn the teamwork necessary to keep a car going in a fender-bending, gear-grinding stock-car race.
After literally crawling all over Harper’s red ’89 Camaro and Winchester’s blue ’70 Chevelle for about 30 minutes, the boys are sufficiently enthralled with auto racing to want to hear Winchester’s pitch. Along with some 60 other students attracted by the commotion, the class returns to the auto lab and sits at tables in front of a blackboard. Then Winchester stands, uncoils his 6-foot-6, 260-pound body, and explains that his reasons for starting the pit-crew program go deeper than merely providing them with an entry-level opportunity to get into racing. It’s something the boys don’t expect to hear.
“I’m an ex-drug addict and alcoholic,” he says. That gets their attention. “I was using before you were born.” Winchester, a 37-year-old Vietnam veteran who works as a financial consultant for auto dealerships, goes on to detail the depths of his addiction. “I would panhandle for food. I would call McDonald’s and say they messed up my order. If people hadn’t helped me, I’d be dead.”
Winchester, who tells them he has been clean and sober for 15 years, says he started the pit-crew program, called Antelope Valley Outreach, “as an alternative to drugs and the gang scene, ‘cause that stuff ain’t happening, guys. Our intent is to keep you out of trouble.” With an imposing presence, a booming voice that fills all corners of the four-bay, cinder-block lab and street-talking demeanor, Winchester holds his audience.
“There’s more of a high racing and working with these cars than doing drugs,” he says. “After a race, that feeling of accomplishment is unbelievable, a rush, even for members of the pit crew.”
Winchester has the blessing of the high school and the Antelope Valley Union School District, Principal Ray Monti says. “We feel that it’s worthwhile that he’s trying to reach kids,” says Monti, who adds that the program will not be part of the school curriculum.
Speedway general manager Ray Wilkings has not ironed out the final details with Winchester but sees no problems with the program. “It sounds like a pretty good deal to me,” he says.
Winchester expects 70 to 100 students, mostly boys, to take part in the program. They will work in five-man rotations for three drivers: Harper, last season’s champion in the Sportsman division; Brian Kelley, Hobby Stock champion; and Winchester, an experienced Go-Kart and motocross racer who will be a rookie at Saugus. Winchester explains to them that they will have to get a waiver of liability signed by a parent, they must be at least 16, they can’t drive the race cars, and they need to know how to follow directions. His.
“I’m no pushover,” Winchester says, “and you should know this: we don’t drink, we don’t smoke, we don’t party, we don’t tolerate anybody playing games. We expect you to be at the track on Friday nights to help prepare the car for Saturday’s race. This is serious business.”
By now, the boys are beginning to squirm--teens do that when adults use the word “serious”--but Winchester lightens up. “We’ll be making a trip to Las Vegas for a race,” he says. “You’ll have a blast.” Then he and Harper hand around some expensive racing gear, including a radio-equipped helmet, and Winchester sets the racing hook deeper.
“That blue Chevelle out there belongs to you,” he says, “if you’re interested in working on it. I live in the second cul-de-sac up the road. We can work on the car at my house.”
When the speeches are over, the boys again go outside and check out the cars. Harper’s $30,000 Camaro still has the scratches and bruises from last season’s racing campaign. As the boys crowd around, he tells them that only his crew’s expertise enabled him to stay in many important races on his way to the title. Then he removes the hood and the boys whistle at the sight of the power-packed engine.
“See, guys, electronic ignition--no points,” auto teacher Rick Engstrom says.
“What kind of compression ratio does it have?” a boy in a blue shirt asks.
“Fourteen and a half to one,” Harper says.
A few boys chime in: “Fourteen and a half to one!”
Just in case anyone was getting the wrong idea, Engstrom says, “Fellas, this is not legal on the street.”
A couple of seniors, Pete Knapp and Clint Sonntag, sign up with the program. “It will probably be a good experience,” says Knapp, whose father is a mechanic. Sonntag wants to work on race cars even though he may have a conflict with his part-time job as a waiter, but, he says, “I have a lenient boss who’ll let me take a lot of time off.”
Winchester watches a boy wriggle though the window of the Chevelle and sit in the driver’s seat. The boy wants to wrap his hands around the steering wheel but looks at Winchester for approval. Winchester smiles at him and says, “Do anything you want. It’s your puppy.”
