High school students enrolled in college automotive courses tore down and rebuilt a V8 engine in 39 minutes and 11 seconds; each took home $10,000 in prizes
Las Vegas—A pair of high school students who are concurrently enrolled in automotive classes at Arapahoe Community College won the 2026 AAPEX Student Competition.
John Parmley, 16, and Schafer Eirich, 18, shaved more than an hour off the winning time from last year’s competition. The duo tore down and rebuilt a V8 engine in front of a live audience that was hundreds of people deep in just 39 minutes and 11 seconds.
“It’s absolutely surreal,” said Schafer Eirich in an interview immediately following the competition. “We’ve been working towards this for so long; we saw it [the inaugural competition] last year and we knew in that moment we needed to do this.”…