GM Turned Its WEC Home Race Into a Classroom for 78 Texas High Schoolers
While Cadillac chased a podium at Lone Star Le Mans, GM ran a two-day STEM program in the same paddock — part of a talent pipeline behind its biggest racing expansion in decades.
While the No. 38 Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA crew was fighting for a podium at last weekend's Lone Star Le Mans, GM Motorsports was running a very different operation a few garages down: a two-day STEM program that brought 78 ninth-graders from Del Valle High School into a working World Endurance Championship paddock at Circuit of the Americas.
The program, called Driven to Explore, was delivered with the Austin Community College Make It Center and backed by the WEC itself. It was built around five modules tied to the students' school curriculum: tire science presented by Michelin, a mini-scrutineering exercise, a robotics-based pit lane challenge using Sphero devices, a media module, and garage tours with Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA, TF Sport, and WEC officials.
This wasn't a walk-around field trip. According to Robert Binns, who co-leads GM's K-12 STEM IMPACT group with Kenna Edwards, the students had to deliver under race-style conditions.
"Working as a team, students were challenged to build a competitive car within a strict ruleset, execute a pit stop, and pitch a business and sponsorship plan to GM program leadership," Binns said.
The students also watched a live practice session before the race weekend proper. The IMPACT group behind the event started more than three years ago with classroom talks, GM says, and has since grown into trackside programs, competition judging, and career discovery events, with previous stops at Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Virginia International Raceway.
Why GM is investing in ninth-graders
The timing is no accident. GM's racing footprint is larger than it has been in decades: alongside its IndyCar, NASCAR, and IMSA programs, Cadillac is a full Hypercar contender in the WEC, and the Cadillac Formula 1 Team joined the grid this year as the sport's eleventh entry, with facilities in Indiana, North Carolina, and the UK.
The home crowd got a payoff, too. Hours after the students left the paddock, the No. 38 of Jack Aitken, Sébastien Bourdais, and Earl Bamber crossed the line third and was promoted to second when the No. 35 Alpine collected a five-second penalty for an unsafe release — the team's best result of the season and its second podium weekend in a row after São Paulo.
All of that expansion needs engineers, technicians, and commercial staff, and GM is being open about the pipeline logic. Binns says he looks forward to the day an intern or new hire joins GM Motorsports because of the program. The company hasn't said where Driven to Explore will travel next, but with COTA remaining the WEC's only US round, a return visit seems like a safe bet.
