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On March 9, 2005 national history was made in Connecticut. The AAA National Student Auto Skills program arranged with the Technical High School System to pilot the Ford/AAA qualifying test in an online mode. This was a first for AAA, and CT is the sole pilot state this year.

Mother Nature threw a snow curve on the day of the testing with many schools having delays and a few closed for the entire day. With the online testing, schools had the ability to take the test anytime during the day at their school so the late starts were not a problem as they would have been in the past with centralized paper and pencil testing. Schools closed were rescheduled for testing the following day.

Allan Stanley, the Technical Coordinator from AAA National Headquarters in Orlando flew in and witnessed the event at Prince THS and Cheney THS. Mr. Stanley was very pleased with the outcomes and based on the results, plans to offer the online testing option to all states next year. Laurence Eiden, the Automotive Consultant for the Technical High School System coordinated the testing specifics state wide with both the Technical High Schools and the Comprehensive High schools and AAA National.

The test results will be released in a few weeks with the top ten scoring teams qualifying for the finals. The State Hands-On Championship finals will be held on May 18, 2005 at 9:30 AM in North Haven at Gateway Community College. The winners of the state finals will earn the right to represent Connecticut at the National competition held on June 27, 2005 in Washington, D.C.