This post, the second in a series, was written by Christie Hyde from AAA’s national office as she accompanies the winners of the 2010 Ford/AAA Student Auto Skills competition, students McKenzie Nordland and Jonathan Anderson of Valley City, N.D., as they travel to job shadow the Roush Fenway racing team.

The second day of the trip began early for the Ford/AAA Student Auto Skills national champions as we traveled a short distance from our hotel in Mooresville, N.C., to Roush Fenway Racing’s NASCAR Nationwide Series race shop. The facility houses many of the same elements as its Concord, N.C., headquarters, such as a chassis dyno, pit stop practice area and paint shop, but these are at the disposal specifically for its teams competing in NASCAR’s secondary series. While the Mooresville facility does not have a large public exhibit area like the museum in Concord, N.C., race fans can enter the front entrance and watch Roush Fenway Racing’s teams in action through viewing windows in the lobby.

The Auto Skills winners began their day by meeting their mentor for the rest of the week - Rick Viers, crew chief of the No. 16. Con-way Freight Ford Fusion of driver Colin Braun. Rick has worked with drivers such as Kevin Harvick, Clint Bowyer and Ron Hornaday, but he got his start as tire changer on a NASCAR pit crew.

After giving the Auto Skills winners a tour of the Mooresville facility, he wanted to see just how much they had learned during pit stop coaching on Tuesday. They watched the No. 16 team during pit stop practice, and then the pit crew handed over their knee pads and air guns to the Auto Skills trio to see who would be quickest among them – an honor that went to 17-year-old McKenzie Nordland.

NASCAR driver Colin Braun stopped by the shop to check on the progress of his race car for this weekend’s upcoming race and sat down with the Auto Skills winners to chat with them for quite a while. At age 21, Braun is not much older than the students, but shared how he has been racing since age 8 and how he progressed in his career to reach his dream of becoming a NASCAR driver. 

It was time for the students to get to work following lunch, as they helped the team load race cars, pit boxes and tool boxes onto the race hauler before it departed for Indianapolis. And once the hauler was loaded, the work wasn’t done. They were give the task of waxing one of the No. 16 cars in preparation for it to be wrapped with a giant decal that complete covers the car and completely changes its appearance.

After putting in seven hours at the race shop, the students got a break as we headed back to Concord, N.C., to NASCAR’s Research and Development Center. But along the way, we decided to get a reprieve from the 97 degree temperatures with a stop in the drive-thru at Cookout Restaurant, which boasts nearly 40 different types of handmade milkshakes. 

At NASCAR’s R&D Center, the Auto Skills winners got to tour a facility that’s not open to the public. There, they saw what the racing organization does to promote safety and good competition such as how it develops new cars and tests parts and components. It also got to sneak a peek in the ‘confiscated parts’ room, where NASCAR houses pieces it has confiscated at racetracks from those who didn’t quite follow the rules. And the winners are one of only a few who have seen a bodywork modification NASCAR is wind tunnel testing next week and race fans might see on race cars next season.

For dinner, the Auto Skills winners got their first taste of Five Guys Burgers & Fries, a chain known for its hand-formed, never frozen hamburger patties and fresh cut French fries. And after dinner, it was time of the Auto Skills trio to try their hand behind the wheel as we headed to The Pit – an indoor kart racing facility in Mooresville with a 70,000 square-foot kart track that is 1/3 mile long with 20 turns.

The next day, we headed over to the NASCAR Technical Institute in Mooresville, N.C., a branch campus of Universal Technical Institute, which provided scholarships to many Auto Skills participants this year at the state and national level. We received a VIP tour of the school that offers manufacturer-specific training programs as well as instruction to help technicians learn how to work specifically on NASCAR race cars. In the NASCAR labs, the school has both engine and chassis dynos that instructors allowed the winners to witness first hand in action, testing motors that were built by students.

Next, we drove south to Cornelius, N.C., home of Omni Severin Hotel, located in the heart of downtown Indianapolis near Lucus Oil Stadium, home to the Indianapolis Colts. We took a short half-block walk to The Ram Restaurant & Brewery, a family owned and operated restaurant since 1971 serving up hand-forged burgers, steaks, seafood and more.