Since 2002, students in the Mascenic Automotive Program have come away with first place honors at the Ford/AAA Auto Skills Competition at Loudon International Speedway, in an event that challenges skill, knowledge, execution and good, old-fashioned mechanical resolve.

This year was no exception as ConVal seniors Craig Cook and Rob Hicks teamed up to fix 10 different problems on a 2010 Mercury Milan.

“They did absolutely fabulously,” said Vincent Fittante, the instructor of the automotive program that is located inside the garage of the New Ipswich Highway Department, and includes students from Mascenic, Conant and ConVal as part of the Region 14 Applied Technology Center.

As a result of winning the competition on Saturday, Cook, Hicks and Fittante are headed to Dearborn, Mich., where they will be competing at the national finals June 13 through 15.

“Now, as a state winner, Ford/AAA will pick up all the expenses for the trip,” said Fittante, who is looking forward to touring the Henry Ford Museum as part of the prize package, including rooms that were once closed off to the public.

“We will get to visit a secret room that Henry Ford had where he invented the Model T,” said Fittante.

In order for the students to have won first place at Loudon over the past weekend, Fittante said they had to identify and solve problems with the Mercury Milan, including why it would not start. They also had to troubleshoot several electrical malfunctions with the vehicle, including windows that would not go down, a license plate light that would not work, door locks that stopped working and a trunk latch that would not lock.

Fittante said that out of all the issues wrong with the car, Cook and Hicks only failed to solve one. “Everybody else missed it as well,” said Fittante.

While having to troubleshoot the car during a statewide competition was stressful enough for the two students, Fittante said the bad weather on Saturday made working on the car outdoors even more difficult.

“The weather conditions were absolutely horrible. It was like a typhoon in Loudon. [The students] were drenched,” said Fittante, and the manuals that they were given to work on the vehicle were soaked. “The manuals turned to the consistency of wet toilet paper, even one of our electric meters malfunctioned because it got water-logged,” said Fittante.

After their first place win on Saturday, the two teens were awarded well over $43,000 in scholarship money from a variety of different technical schools, including Ohio Tech, Central Maine Community College, University of Northern Ohio and New England Tech.

“There were different schools that they got scholarships from,” said Fittante. “There was a dollar value on each school. If they choose to go to that school, they can use that amount towards tuition.”

On Tuesday, Fittante learned of another technical college that is also going to offer the two first-place students scholarships.

“I was at the New Hampshire Autodealers Association last night. Through some clerical error, New Hampshire Technical College scholarships were never given out,” said Fittante, who was unsure how much money each scholarship would award.

With the nationals just around the corner, Fittante said he and his students are excited at the prospect of competing against students from across the country. “I’m looking forward to it,” he said. “All 50 states will be represented there.”