Every hot rodder has dreamed of the day they could burn some rubber in their high schools parking lot. Whether that has actually happened or not will be a story you will only tell your kids when they have long since graduated from high school. Well, I am lucky enough to say I did it! Believe it or not with the Principals permission! Brad Reikkoff (West Bend Dyno Owner) and Gerald Sorce (Automotive Instructor) were dreaming up cool ideas at the shop about driving the Teacher’s Pet car to the high school and autocrossing it in the parking lot. Like some shop talk we never thought the school would agree to something like that.

Well Gerald Sorce approached the principle and believe or not she agreed, and wanted to be there to see it happen. How cool! So with help from the Physical Education department and other teachers we set up a mini Autocross course to demonstrate to the high school staff what the automotive students did and how skilled they are. Dennis Prunty (Teacher’s Pet driver) came and spoke to the students and staff about careers at his day job Quad Graphics. He was also able to give the teacher’s a “Spirited” ride in Teacher’s Pet on the course. Needless to say we got a lot of smiles from the staff. Gerald Sorce said, “It’s so important for society to understand that being interested in the automotive industry is not a low skill level job. It requires a young man/women to apply their skills learned in math, science, and many other courses to diagnose and fix a vehicle to make it drive safely down the road for many miles to come.”

With Teacher’s Pet progressively getting more time on the road it was time to put it on display at the local car shows. Early September brings two big car shows in the West Bend, Wisconsin area. Wheels on Main in West Bend and the Kewaskum Classic Car Show. We were able to put Teacher’s Pet on display at both of these events for the community to see the car and talk to the students about all the hard work they put in. It was great to see the community back the car and students!

Due to the exposure/excitement Teacher’s Pet has generated in our school and community West Bend High School’s automotive program has grown significantly in student enrollment over the past year. It is so great to see young men and women excited about learning how to fix/maintain their cars. This car build has (thanks to all of our sponsors) put West Bend High School on the map. Be sure to check out “West Bend High School Automotive” on Facebook for more up to date progress on Teacher’s Pet and our next Projects!