MORGANTOWN — When Mike Kelly cranked the engine of that ’67 Barracuda, and all that combustible chaos made it sound like Detroit was having a temper tantrum under the hood, Greg Dausch bent his ear down … and smiled.
Kelly is a longtime member of the Monongalia County Board of Education who just happens to be a gearhead and race car driver from way back.
He’s been known to rocket the ‘Cuda at nearly 140 mph down the quarter-mile at regional raceways from Pennsylvania to Tennessee.
Dausch is the principal of the Monongalia County Technical Education Center, and his friends and associates say he goes a mile-a-minute for the benefit of his school – even when he’s sitting still.
The two were cruising the same road last Sunday.
Kelly towed the racer to the center on Mississippi Street for the revival of an old marketing favorite: The MTEC Cruise-In and Car Show.
For years, said show was a marketing staple for the tech center. Then, it went away for a time.
Then, it came back – before having to go away again last year due to the pandemic.
More than 60 classic rides were parked in the lot last weekend, with their chrome and metallic flake paint jobs glinting in the September sun.
MTEC’s culinary students served up a table full of pulled-pork sliders for the afternoon.
All that Detroit rolling iron was pretty tasty too, Dausch said.
“We profited $3,000,” he said. “Our kids can use that.”
The money will be used for materials and entry fees when MTEC students compete in regional and national events, he said.
“We don’t want to burden any of our students with entry fees or other costs when they’re out there representing their school,” Dausch said.
With the Delta variant and all the other pandemic particulars, he said, doing the work of MTEC can be akin to Kelly looking for smooth, straight line on a West Virginia country road – so he can gun the ‘Cuda.
“It’s been interesting,” he said.
“Sometimes I’ll see a kid on the shop floor not wearing his mask. I understand because it gets really hot in those places. I just say, ‘Hey, dude. You gotta wear your mask.’ We’re all working here.”
So, did anyone peel rubber in the MTEC parking lot?
“They definitely took advantage of that at the bottom of the hill.”
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