TEAM WORK

As the crowds cheer "Go! Go!" while watching their favorite car speed past all the other racers, most wouldn't expect that hard work by high school students was responsible for building one of those cars. However, No. 21 had the young creators of the race car smiling with confidence.

Billy Mitchell, a teacher at Coronado High School and owner of Team Motor Sports, was the man in charge of this major project and brought together a few teachers so that Coronado can allow their students to be a part of the Team Cougar Racing committee.

Team Cougar Racing committee is an after-school organization for students who are interested in building cars. The team has been working on the car for about five months.

Team Motor Sports has been building cars to race for 15 years. Mitchell bought a used car for the club. As a team, they took it apart and put the race car back together. Supporters of the program sponsor the car, and all revenue is used to fund activities for students.

The after-school group is filled with about 18 students, fulfilling duties in business management, graphic design, mechanics, sports marketing and Web design.

"I enjoy working on cars. It is fun, and believe it or not, it is a interesting way of incorporating geometry," says Jake Port, a junior at Coronado.

Their first race was April 19, it was the fourth race of the season. The students had a late start on the building, but now their hard work has paid off.

The team is excited and proud of their accomplishment. They placed sixth in the race out of all super late model and late model cars, which are lighter than the super late models.

"I think it was an amazing start. Red dash came in fourth starting ... in the third row outside, it moved all the way up to fifth, cut off when easing to fourth, spun out, sent to last place, worked way back to finish fifth in our class," says an anxious Brady Cleary.

The car competes on a 3/8-mile oval track at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. The car has a black base with red and blue strips.

There is also a cougar painted on the car.

"The car has a lot of potential," says Cleary, a Coronado sophomore. "We have recently made some tweaks to it so that it goes significantly faster."