Today's winners will go on to the national finals in Washington, D.C., where scholarships and job opportunities can be had. Competing for that opportunity are nine teams from eight schools, two boys on each team. There are no girls in the contest this year, nor have there been for many years, although there are girls in this year's Connecticut and Massachusetts contests. You're watching them and you don't know what's going on. From this distance, he can't tell what the two boys he's taught for three years are doing, except that they're under the hood, their arms plunged deep into the engine.
Some teams have definite styles, though.
The boys from Chariho Career and Technical Center work slowly and methodically, poring over the Mustang manual. The boys from Pilgrim High School, in Warwick, on the other hand, sprint across the lot at the sound of the horn. They're the first to pop the hood. He's moving too fast. Palmer was a mechanic himself for 20 years, he says.