Free State High School graduating senior Brett Reineman inspects the brake pads of an Oldsmobile Alero recently at Dale and Ron’s Auto Service, 630 Conn. Reineman, who has been in and out of the service shop since he was in eighth grade, will attend the Nascar Technical Institute in Morrisville, N.C., in July to continue his education for automotive technology. He hopes to one day own a chassis shop where he can build and repair “dirt-track” racecars.

While it seems that most high school graduates head off to college, Brett Reineman, son of Earl and Tammy Reineman, is driving down a different road.

The Free State High senior graduates today and soon will head to North Carolina to fine-tune his mechanical skills in automotive repair.

“(I’m) going to NASCAR Technical Institute in Mooresville, North Carolina,” Brett said. “About 70 percent of the time is hands-on in the shop.”

Brett has been a staple at Dale and Ron’s Auto Service, 630 Conn., since he was in eighth grade. He started with an unpaid internship and moved up to porter a few years later. He does everything from cleanup work to some light maintenance.

Some in the garage tried to drive him away from the automotive world.

“We tried to talk him out of doing it because there’s easier ways to make a living,” joked Rick Bellinger, the owner of Dale and Ron’s. “There aren’t a whole lot of young guys getting into the business anymore, so it’s nice to see somebody want to do it.”

But Brett wouldn’t want to steer in any other direction.

“Cars is that outlet for me,” he said. “I’ve got a passion for taking anything apart and figuring out how it works and putting it back together.”

While Brett enjoyed his experience at Free State, he’s ready to leave the homework and core classes behind.

“My time at Free State was great. It’s a good school,” he said. “I’m just ready to get out of the school atmosphere.”

His first teachers at Dale and Ron’s think Brett is entering the technical school race with a lead.

“He’s got the basic knowledge of how everything works. He should be far ahead of most people in his class,” said Bellinger. “Now he’s actually going to go get the real learning that he needs.”

NASCAR Technical Institute is an 18-month program that teaches its students how to be shop mechanics for NASCAR garages. The school also teaches on-the-street automotive lessons. Brett hopes he does well enough to get picked up by a car manufacturer for one of their specific programs, which would be another 27 weeks or so, and placed in a dealership near Lawrence.

“I’m hoping to try and come back to this area somewhere,” he said. “It’s hard to get a job in the NASCAR field, especially with things the way they are right now. Shops are budgeting and cutting down.”

But Brett isn’t deterred from chasing his dream. He knows that the automotive field is the right one for him. So do the other mechanics he spends time with.

“He really likes it. He really enjoys it,” said Bellinger. “It’s cool that he’s going to go ahead and go on with it.”

Even though he was elbow-deep in cars during high school, Brett also was cultivating leadership skills in Future Farmers of America. He also placed first in the automotive service technology competition for SkillsUSA, a nonprofit organization that focuses on students preparing for trade, technical and skilled services occupations. Brett had to take apart and reassemble a brake rotor, troubleshoot other items and identify parts of a car’s air conditioning unit.

“It was about a six-hour contest,” Brett said. “They had 15-minute stations. There were about 15 of them. … Just a bunch of little different stations to test everything.”

Brett is now cruising toward his final career goal.

“Just working on cars, anything I can do that’s hands-on, I love it,” he said.