Photo courtesy Sherwyn Cummings

By Erika Rolling

Run Your Junk

Race car built by St. Joe’s students will be at Hythe Motor Speedway in July

Jun 12, 2022 | 7:00 AM

In only two weeks’ time, multiple students in various courses at St. Joseph’s Catholic High School built a race-ready car for Hythe Motor Speedway’s Run Your Junk division.

A 2002 Ford Taurus had been recently donated to the mechanics class by St. Joe’s Fabrication Instructor Mr. (Ryan) Young, and Mechanics Instructor Mr. (Sherwyn) Cummings decided to do more with it than just have it sit in the shop.

Mr. Cummings says the idea to turn it into a race car came from a post he saw on Facebook.

“I was like… huh… that’s a pretty good idea! I think that’s something myself and my students can put together!” Mr. Cummings exclaimed.

The decision to use the donated car from Mr. Young was an easy decision Mr. Cummings says.

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“In the class, it has to be an all-stock vehicle, stock engine, stock tires. So I thought it would be perfect.”

“I thought… why don’t we build a race car with it and do something with the kids!”

Mr. Cummings says not only did his mechanics students work on it, “but also Fabrication students as well as Open Tech students for the decals and design.”

“I spoke with Mr. (Joel) McLeod that teaches Open Tech Studies and he said it was a fantastic idea, so he had a couple of his students take pictures and make measurements and they made the vinyl decals for it.”

“I then spoke to Mr. Young and his fabrication students he selected to make the interior roll cage and all the other stuff we needed to fab up for safety purposes, and we got a few of those students and they were so into it,” he says.

The mechanic class did all the mechanical work like all new brakes, all safety requirements and helped with some welding.

Mr. Cummings says the students were great at stripping the vehicle and it was great firsthand experience he could add into his classes. “The beauty of it too, when they had it all gutted, they could actually see, instead of in a textbook, of how stuff is put together by disassembling the entire vehicle essentially.”

He says that all the work was done by St. Joe’s students; “I couldn’t hold them back!”

“I left it all up to them, I let them come up with the ideas, the designs, everything… it was all in their hands. We gave them free rein and guided them along the way.”

Mr. Young inspected all the welding work the students did and made sure it was fit to drive.

Mr. Cummings will be driving the vehicle at Hythe Motor Speedway in the Run Your Junk division on Saturday, July 9 as well as every division race after that.

Photo courtesy Sherwyn Cummings

Photo courtesy Sherwyn Cummings