Lincoln Tech holds automotive finals

After debugging a 2007 Buick Lacrosse of more than a dozen glitches, Thomas Edison Vocational-Technical High School seniors Geary Mohammed and Nimesh Tigree took home third prize in the annual New York Finals of the National Automotive Technology Competition.
The win earned them each several scholarships - $5,000 from Lincoln Technical Institute (LTI), $4000 from Ohio Technical College, $2,000 from the Baran Institute of Technology, and $2,000 from the Universal Technical Institute (UTI) - but wasn’t enough to qualify the students for the national competition. Only first-place winners Austin Cardany and Andrew Gluck from Southern Westchester BOCES in Valhalla have a chance at the national title round.
However, South Ozone Park resident Mohammed said that the experience alone was worth the countless hours of preparation - from noon to 6 p.m. each day after school and many more hours trolling through online repair manuals in the evening. If he had one thing to say to the school’s future competitors, it would be to, “be ready for anything they can throw anything at you.”
Mohammed, 17, started working on cars at the age of 6, helping his father with both body and mechanical work. Posters of exotic autos - Lamborghinis and Ferraris - line the walls of his bedroom, and when asked what his favorite car is, he is quick to respond - a Mitsubishi Evolution. He hopes to attend UTI and study automotive technology, in order to get a job at a dealership or service center.
His teacher, James Massa, believes Mohammed and the five other Thomas Edison students who participated in the competition - Tigree, Keran Dalliphcharnd, Kevin Leigh, Rony Byas, and Raynor Dodd - are already well on their way to careers in the industry.
Every year, Massa and fellow automotive instructor Barry Roopnarine handpick students to prepare for the series of competitions leading up to the national round. This year, Thomas Edison swept the regional round - taking first, second, and third.
“We have to do our part to give them every opportunity out there,” Roopnarine said when asked why the school attends the competitions.
“This for most of them sets up their career for the rest of their lives,” Massa said, as the three Thomas Edison teams fastidiously worked on their assigned automobiles. Along with a hands-on portion where competitors work to identify and remove problems with an actual car, the students are also given a short written test and a hands-on quiz with computerized car mechanisms.
“It was very challenging,” Mohammed said of the competition, which was sponsored by the Greater New York Automotive Dealers Association (GNYADA) and LTI in Whitestone. LTI also offered assistance to all the teams in the competition.