Micheal McLey is the son of David and Diane McLey. Chad Walker is the son of Brian and Kelly Walker and Carrie Walker.
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Two Gallatin R-5 seniors, Chad Walker and Micheal McLey, were part of a collision tech team at Grand River Technical School in Chillicothe, which earned top honors in a pedal car competition held Friday through Sunday, Feb. 10-12, at World of Wheels auto show at Bartle Hall in Kansas City.
“‘The Don Ridler Memorial Award is a very prestigious car-building award,” said Arch Haslar, instructor of the collision tech class. “In 2016, the award went to a 1939 Oldsmobile. The student’s pedal car pays tribute to the actual car.”
The vo-tech student’s pedal car was on display at Bartle Hall and auctioned off on Sunday afternoon. Their ‘Riddler’ brought a record-setting $1,575 for the top car. In previous years, the highest bid was $800.
World of Wheels Autorama & World of Wheels shows are produced indoors across the US and in Canada. Along with hundreds of cars on display — street machines, custom cars, restored cars, hot rods and trucks, chop show demonstrations, and famous personalities from sports and television — the show features a pedal car challenge.
“They invited us to enter the competition,” said Chad. “We had four weeks.”
“We did it and won,” said Micheal. “We put it together in stages.”
Micheal worked a lot on the prefab, cutting out the cardboard model for customization. Chad primarily worked on the long-strand fiberglass filler, to shape the fenders.
In this fashion, the collision tech students began with a typical pedal car and shaped and modeled it to look like the ’39 Oldsmobile.
This was the first year Grand River Technical participated in the event. There were 14 schools from four states, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas and Missouri, competing.
Chad and Micheal attend Grand River Technical School every Monday through Friday, from about 9:30 to 2:30, for a three-hour block of classes.
Mr. Haslar said around 10 students were involved with the making of the pedal car. Teamwork was one of the most valuable lessons the students learned in the project.
“They used a whole range of development skills,” he noted. “Team work, designing, mechanical — they had to build the drive train — paint refinishing and detailing.”
Micheal plans to attend vo-tech another year, and then enter the industry. Chad plans to continue for two years after high school and then get a job at a body shop.
“Auto body is a great program to get into if you like to learn all different kinds of things about cars and like the more hands-on kind of work,” Chad said.
“It’s a college-level course you can take for free while you’re still in high school,” Micheal added.
Once the competition was over, the collision tech students started working on actual vehicles again. They are building insurance salvaged vehicles for public auction at the end of May. They are doing extensive repair on a Buick Lacrosse.
“Now that they’re done with the extra curricular work, they’ll go back to practicing for the real world on real cars,” Mr. Haslar said.