You've probably seen the commercials on late-night Television: young men and women talking about how they were able to follow their dream of working on cars and make a good living at it. More often than not, the commercials are for Universal Technical Institute (UTI), a group of seven schools located around the country that provides hands-on training so their students can graduate in a variety of automotive fields.
The schools, located in Arizona, Southern California, Florida, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and Texas (UTI also has a NASCAR campus in North Carolina), were founded in 1965 to provide classroom experience in every aspect of the automotive world, from tuning Porsches and BMWs to specific instruction on diesel fuel and engine systems and even transport refrigeration. Some of the schools offer collision repair and refinishing techniques, and most of the programs are more than 51 weeks long, with some clocking in with as much as 90 weeks of instruction.
Some of the classes are tailored to specific applications, such as Hot Rod U, a course devoted to hot rod musclecars of all shapes and sizes. If it can be made to go faster, then the folks in this class can make it happen. They learn how to maximize torque and horsepower, study superchargers and turbos, and get to know engines (cylinder head theory, camshaft design, dyno testing, etc.) from the inside out.
So when UTI and Hot Rod magazine got together to figure out a way to promote that facet of the school's curriculum, the concept of pitting four of the school's campuses against each other with similar vehicles came to light. The competition would be a way for the students to apply what they've learned to a practical application and, hopefully, have fun doing so.
Most of the UTI schools work on T-buckets in their hot rodding class (as they're a pretty simple design to get automotive theory across), but when Factory Five Racing said they'd supply four of their Spec Racer roadsters to the cause, things began to get interesting. Soon, the program got a title sponsor, Quaker State, who was tapped to supply all the vehicles' engine, transmission, and differential lubricants, and then Summit Racing stepped up to provide a $10,000 credit line to be spent however each team decided to use it (Brakes or heads? Nitrous or supercharger?).
Each team would be made up of students who had shown exemplary progress in the school's program, plus a team leader (or advisor) from each of the four campuses who would guide the buildup and order the parts. Each of the teams would be supplied with a Ford Racing Performance Parts 302 crate engine (PN M-6007-F50). Certain parameters were set--suspension geometry couldn't be changed, cars had to be equipped with a rear-mounted remote kill switch, etc. Comp Cams would provide each school with whatever they needed to modify the original equipment, and special grind camshafts were allowed.
After the cars were built, they had to be registered and insured in their state of assembly, and all the cars were equipped with DOT-approved tires. Manual or automatic transmissions were allowed, but manuals had to include an SFI-approved bellhousing and flywheel, while automatics had to use an SFI-approved flexplate. An SCCA Open GT Class-approved fire suppression system also had to be installed, and each car had to have an FFR-supplied aluminum racing seat, racing harness, and fuel cell.
To test and determine the winner of the best build, each of the four teams (from the Avondale, Arizona; Houston, Texas; Glendale Heights, Illinois; and Exton, Pennsylvania, schools) met at a racetrack and competed in four categories (quarter-mile, slalom, 60-to-0 braking, and dyno pulls) to be judged subjectively on how well they were able to finish their ride's appearance, fit, and general curb appeal. To make things as fair as possible, an FFR Spec Racer, Bryan Dobyns, did the behind-the-wheel duties on the dragstrip, slalom, and brake tests, while the students were behind the wheel during the dyno pulls. The following pages are dedicated to the four schools and how they did when they got together at Houston International Raceway in Texas one wet weekend, starting from the fourth-place team and ending with the first-place school.