SCHOOLS & E D U C AT IO N
REVVING UP
SUCCESS
The Chapel Hill High School automotive program drives hands-on learning By Leah B erry
Photography by J ohn Mi chael Si m pson
tudents at Chapel Hill High School are accelerating toward success in a number of ways – pun intended – and the automotive program led by instructor Robert Ballard is a prime example. Robert has been running the program for the eight years that he’s been at CHHS, but it’s been around for much longer than he has – “I want to say it started in the ’60s,” he says. He spent nearly 10 years doing specialized diagnostic and electric work at Wallace’s Auto Electric, while simultaneously teaching tech school classes at night – namely at Wake Tech and Durham Tech (where he also graduated with an associate degree in automotive technology). “I got a phone call saying there was an opening for an automotive position at CHHS, so I dropped what I was doing at the shop and came here,” Robert says. He teaches seven automotive courses a day – four intro classes and a few advanced ones – and also heads the racing club, a 14-person team of mostly juniors or seniors who leave school early every Friday during the season (March through September) to 80
chapelhillmagazine.com
Although students are not involved in the physical racing, they complete a number of tasks on the car and are heavily involved in prepping the car at the racetrack.
November/December 2024
take part in races at Wake County Speedway. “We do practice, then qualifying, and then racing starts at 6 or 7 o’clock,” Robert explains. “We race till about 11 o’clock, then we go home. The program works on custombuilt cars, usually sourced with the help of Chapel Hill Tire. “There’s certain things we can and cannot do in the program,” Robert explains. “We still have to stick to our curriculum, so if there’s something that relates to the race car, we’ll work on it and do it in class.” He says chassis fabrication is not part of the course, for example, so that gets outsourced. “We do the break lines, electrical, the power train, a lot of the suspension setup and things like that. So it’s a process of putting the car together and setting the car up at the track and then racing it,” he says. While the driver of the team’s race car is a 30-year veteran, the students are part of the pit crew. Back in the classroom, students have around 100-200 different task sheets they