It's 6:45 am on a Tuesday in Laramie. A line of vehicles moves like ants to the WyoTech campus on the southwest side of town. Students in full dress automotive technician uniforms and work boots file into the parking lot. Some head to the High Performance Engine class taught by Dave Gorman, Larry Stiblitz, and Rory Palmer—three instructors with decades of expertise and a pride that doesn't tolerate shortcuts.
Before students crack their textbooks or start prepping at the workbench, they receive the message that the work being done in the classroom matters. Dave, Larry, and Rory model professionalism that demands respect. A message written on the whiteboard makes it clear: "Engines are designed by science, analysis, and physical facts. No Guessing."
The High-Performance Engine course goes beyond teaching the math of engine building. Dave, Larry, and Rory are shaping the professional identity their students will carry into their careers. They’re modeling high expectations and attention to detail, from arriving early to dressing the for the profession.
Dave picked up this philosophy from an engineer and values its broad application. He's a former professional racer who brings that drag-racing energy and a sharp sense of humor to this intensive engine-building bootcamp. But his humor never targets the work itself—only the shortcuts and guesses that come from not respecting it. For Dave, precision is personal.
Dave begins by asking a question that shifts how students think about their work: "How do you acquire a horsepower target for your personal engine, or a racing engine for a customer's race car?" He pauses briefly to add drama and then exclaims, "MATH!" He doesn't just announce it; he makes them feel it. From there, the conversation moves to what he calls the "engine of intent." The question every builder must answer first: What is this engine for? A dragster has different demands than a rock crawler, which has different demands than an in-town commuter. Before students touch a single formula, they're learning to think like professionals. They're learning that math serves a purpose.
Their first assignment is straightforward. Students must design a legal NASCAR engine with specifications to survive, or ideally win, the grueling Daytona 500. Phones come out and calculator apps pop open. Conversations about ratios fill the air in hushed tones. Students are building math fluency while applying concepts they’ve learned in school, such as order of operations. As they work through the calculations that will determine whether their engine meets the specifications, one student catches a classmate skipping a step, and his admonition cuts through the chatter: “Hey! Parentheses first. Don’t you remember PEMDAS?!”
Larry and Rory later explain how they watch from the sidelines, looking for the moment when a student's resistance cracks, when struggle stops being about disliking math and starts being about problem-solving. It happens differently for each student, but it happens. "About three-quarters of our students don't like math when they start," Larry mentions. "Three months later, they see engines as math, cars as formulas, suspension as geometry. They think differently about the utility." Rather than making math easier, the shift is about presenting struggles in a way that matters to students.
When a student hits a wall mid-calculation or mid-build, the instructors don't jump in and solve it. This is deliberate. Dave calls himself the lifeguard on duty. He watches. "You're all there, and you're struggling to swim," he tells them. "I'm gonna watch you to make sure you don't go under. As soon as you go under, I'm gonna come in and save you." He's both managing their frustration and guiding students through struggle. He's showing that productive struggle is part of the process, that they can work through it, and that he trusts them enough to let them try.
Larry tracks a build like a fuse, watching for potential detonation. When an equation goes wrong on the page or in the shop, error compounds. He watches and, through questions, helps students find their mistakes before frustration turns into giving up. He's teaching precision, but he's also modeling a way for students to check their work consistently as part of professional practice.
Rory has seen errors compound. He has also seen solutions appear. "Just the other day," he says, laughing, "there was a kid working on a job that should have taken 30 minutes. It lasted all morning. Every time the engine got near running, the kid tore it back apart and started over. He was standing there with his head in his hands, shaking with frustration." Rory walked over, said simply, "Relax," and walked away. Ten minutes later, the engine started. Rory wanted the student to own the spark, the moment, when the engine fired and revved. That was his struggle to work through, persist, and grow. That's the story of a builder.
Students learn through the course that embracing the struggle and unlocking new ideas builds problem-solving skills and persistence that can turn an idea into the engine of intent, whatever the intent may be.
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