With Petty’s help, MN high schools will compete in kart build-off

Builders, start your engines! And start ’em young. That’s the enthusiastic message in Minnesota, where NASCAR legend Richard Petty and celebrity motorcycle builder Billy Lane have joined forces with Northern Tool + Equipment to sponsor a go-kart-building competition between two of the state’s high schools.

The build-off, which kicked off June 23 at the Minnesota Street Rod Association “Back to the ’50s” event in St. Paul, is part of Northern Tool + Equipment’s Tools for the Trades™ program. Under the guidance of celebrity mentors Petty and Lane, teams from Minneapolis North and Lakeville North will spend the 2023–24 school year constructing go-karts using 740cc NorthStar EFI engines. The finished karts will then be unveiled at the 50th anniversary of “Back to the ’50s” in June 2024 and raced at Lane’s Sons of Speed® classic motorcycle racing series.

It’s all in the name of bringing more young people into the automotive trades.

“Tools for the Trades is a great program, and it’s important for kids to know they have career options,” Petty says. “This country will always need tradespeople to make and manufacture things … More and more people are getting away from using their hands, waiting for somebody else to do the job. Well, we’re trying to tell young people they’re going to have a job because not everybody will do it.”

With that in mind, Petty adds, “Team Petty is excited to meet the students and help them with this build-off.”

Lane is too.

“It’s a thrill and an honor to be involved in teaching students these skills,” he says. “There are a lot of good ways to make a living, and this effort by Northern Tool + Equipment to expose students to the trades at a young age is critical.”

According to statistics provided by Northern Tool + Equipment, a family-owned company in Burnsville, Minnesota, nearly 25 percent of those in the manufacturing workforce are age 55 or older. The build-off is designed to help fill the gap that will be created when those tradespeople age out of the workforce. Northern Tool hopes the competition will help to ignite a passion for the trades in high school students by providing hands-on, real-world experience with professional-grade tools and mentorship.

Each school’s career and technical education program will receive a new NorthStar EFI engine and professional-grade tools and equipment, including air compressors and air-powered tools donated by Ingersoll Rand. Work will begin this fall. The finished karts will be custom-pinstriped by renowned pinstriper Cliff Anderson, Jr, and the eight-month process will be featured on social media with progress narration by celebrity YouTuber Dylan McCool.

“What I’m most excited for,” says student Luis Torres, “is the opportunity that they’re giving us to work with our hands, getting to learn new things, and apply skills we already know …  This is going to be huge for us.”

Hopefully it will be huge for the rest of the automotive world too.

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