Kneeling, from left, are Allison Stookey, Caleb Clevenger, Jay Duncan and Evan Brower. Standing are Allen Coblentz, Brylee Vandiver, Keegan Hurst, Harry Doss, Cade Beer, Leo Wrage, Aidan Stewart, Alex Martinez, Zeke Keim, Jada Carter and Dylan Lemish. Not pictured are Lindsay Doss, Nate Kryder and Brayden Mickley. Photo by Tim Ashley.

By Tim Ashley
InkFreeNews

SYRACUSE — It was March 2020 and the shop for the engineering classes at Wawasee High School was a mess. Students of the super mileage cars team led by teacher Allen Coblentz had been preparing for what they hoped would be the annual Shell Eco-marathon competition.

But then COVID came and the shutdown of the school and cancellation of the Shell competition. The same competition was cancelled again in 2021 due to COVID.

“We are the reigning U.S. champs,” Coblentz said, referring to the last Shell competition in 2019 that was won by Wawasee. Shell will resume the competition April 10-13 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway where high schools and colleges from America and Canada will compete.

“We will be inside the big oval track on an internal road course,” he said. He is looking forward to his team of 17 students being able to compete at such a historic venue as the IMS, adding “we will get to be in the garages and pits they use there.”

Less than a month later, May 6-7, Wawasee will then compete in the annual state high school competition at the Subaru test track in Lafayette near the Subaru plant. This competition had formerly been held at the Raceway Park in Indy.

Although it is crunch time and the Shell competition is less than three weeks away — “we are feeling that pressure again” — that is a good thing considering there have been no competitions since 2019.

“Now everybody is on the same playing field,” Coblentz noted, and no teams will likely have students returning who have already competed.

Last year Wawasee ran its two super mileage cars on a test track used by Tire Rack near the South Bend International Airport. The original intent was to compete with Concord High School but Concord wasn’t able to finish its car.

“We had our own mini event,” Coblentz said.

Even though Wawasee had built cars the last two years, official competitions are the best way to truly test the vehicles. If something goes wrong during a competition, students are forced to think quickly to come up with solutions to fix the problems.

This year Wawasee will enter two super mileage cars in competitions. One will be a prototype three-wheel battery electric vehicle. The other will be a larger car, an urban concept car, and run on gas and utilize a Honda GX-35 1.3 horsepower engine.

Coblentz said people tend to think competitions are all about speed, but they actually are not. “Gearing is a huge concept,” he said, and the challenge is to get a car up to an average speed and maintain it.

“You need to be able to do the same thing over and over again,” he noted.

And, he commented, “there is really no teacher like failure.”

Wawasee student Zeke Keim is working with the starter motor in the urban concept gas super mileage car being built this year. Photo by Tim Ashley.