Harvick donates $25K price of instruments to North Prime’s car program

Jan. 20—No longer too way back, North Prime car trainer John Radman introduced instruments from his house in order that his scholars may use them as a result of there was once this kind of want in this system.

Neatly, this is till lately, when auto racing megastar Kevin Harvick, a North Prime alumnus, donated $25,000 in GearWrench instruments.

“We went from more or less having not anything,” Radman mentioned, “to having the whole lot.”

Radman, who’s in his first yr at North Prime and in addition teaches development and welding, mentioned extra scholars wish to take part within the car program. Sooner than, there was once hardly ever a draw, he mentioned, and there were not sufficient instruments for more than one scholars to paintings on tasks. However that has all modified.

Radman, who graduated from Centennial Prime in 2002, has a significant connection to the Harvick circle of relatives. When Radman was once more youthful he labored for Harvick’s father, Mike, at his auto store for 4 years. There was once a highschool racing program that integrated a racing collection on the former Mesa Marin Speedway (now Kern County Raceway Park). That first of all led him to fulfill and paintings for Mike Harvick, Radman mentioned.

“I used to be sweeping the flooring at his store and he taught me the best way to repair automobiles,” Radman mentioned. “Now I am instructing different youngsters the best way to paintings on automobiles.”

Radman mentioned he won the inside track about Kevin Harvick’s donation a few month in the past. He communicated with a GearWrench consultant when choosing out the instruments that arrived overdue ultimate week.

The Kern Prime College District touted the inside track in its “Weekly Wrap-up” video on Friday. “We did not have a spot to retailer the instruments for a very long time,” Hanna Weiss, a North Prime senior, says within the video. “As a substitute of our instruments being in a cardboard field, they may be able to be in a pleasing new toolbox. … I simply idea it was once in point of fact superb that once we won the donation, that we have been ready to position it in opposition to car instruments, as a result of that is what we had the least of.”

Tale continues

Radman mentioned the donation has “revitalized” this system and there’s an expectation of greater than 200 scholars short of to enroll in this system.

He added that North and KHSD had been supportive and instrumental in making improvements to the car and workshop categories on the college.

Harvick, who introduced ultimate week that the 2023 season can be his ultimate NASCAR marketing campaign, has a historical past of donating to his alma mater.

In 2008, he helped out the North wrestling group with fundraising for a brand new fieldhouse. 5 years later, he once more gave the athletic division a spice up with new apparatus for the girls and boys golfing groups.

With out the toughen of Bakersfield, “I do not even get began,” he instructed The Californian this week.