For four students at Alfred E. Smith High School in Melrose, the road to dreams is littered with broken-down cars.
That's because the students, who take part in the vocational school's auto technology program, are winning awards for their skill with socket wrenches and spark plugs.
Two of the students, Rionmark McLaren and Eugene Fraser, both 18, make up the team that took first place in the special education category of a metropolitan area competition nearly two weeks ago. Two of their classmates, Carlos Zambrano, 19, and Giovanni DeLaRosa, 20, came in third among twelve teams from New York City and Long Island.
Polishing the brass nameplate on his first-place trophy, McLaren said his father was proud of his achievement. "When I came home with the trophy, he was very excited," he said.
Now both teams are hard at work preparing to go against the best student mechanics in the state at a regional competition scheduled for April 12. The stakes are high: each student on the winning team will take home $7,000 worth of scholarships for college or trade school and a mechanic's tool set worth $500.
By qualifying for the finals, each team has already won a car for the high school's auto program.
McLaren's success in the competition has encouraged him to think more seriously about a career as an auto mechanic. "Before, I thought of it as backup when you can't find work," he said.
He had spent the morning figuring out the firing order of an engine's spark plugs.
"It gives you a boost," said Zambrano, one of the third-place winners, his thick forearms splotched with grease, as he took a break from working on an engine. "You know you can do something and not just be a bum on the street."
Zambrano dreams of owning a repair shop one day. And thanks to his performance in the competition, he's getting a start as an entrepreneur, fixing cars for family members. "Because they see that I've got this trophy, now they think I'm a mechanic," he said.
The competitions require the students to repair a car that has problems ranging from broken electrical systems to missing lug nuts. Competitors also have to write a report on what is wrong with the car. Scores are based on how many problems the students repair, and on the report.
Fraser and McLaren scored a perfect 100 to win first place, while DeLaRosa and Zambrano scored 98, just one point below a second-place team from a Staten Island school.
"It was a close competition," said the winners' teacher, Mamzad Nazirbage, 26, himself a graduate of Smith.
Nazibage has helped Fraser and McLaren prepare for the competitions since September by disabling engines and asking the students to fix them.
"I really like working with the kids, especially the ones who get motivated," says Nazirbage.
His students return the praise. "In my junior year I was about to drop out, because my other teachers didn't care," said Zambrano. "So I came to Nazirbage's class, and he made it fun."
The repair contests are sponsored by the Greater New York Association of Auto Dealers to inspire students to pursue careers as technicians.
"There's already a shortage of qualified employees," said Steve Shapiro, the association's director of education and training. "These students are often not recognized or motivated by the industry."
DeLaRosa said winning the scholarship would enable him to pursue a job with a Ferrari dealer. "I still have to get a diploma and go to technical school," he said. "But technical schools are expensive."