Some of the top high school auto mechanics in the nation are going head-to-head to see who's the best of the best. YNN's Adam Balkin filed the following report.

The National Automotive Technology Competition was started by the Greater New York Automobile Dealers Association to, among other things, find the nation's best young automotive technicians. The 30 teams at the finals at the New York International Auto Show are all winners of their regional competitions.

"The competitions was originally conceived about 20 years ago to help curb the shortage of qualified auto technicians in the country," said Eddie Gazzillo of the Greater New York Auto Dealers Association. "What's important for the kids to do is go through the process and be able to systematically find the issues that they have. They'll get customer complaints and they'll have to research that customer complaint. They have to use the actual manufacturers' specifications to repair it and get the points they need."

Some of the students say when they first started working on cars they just considered themselves "grease monkeys" but never in a million years did they think they might become...math monkeys?

"It's just a fantastic way to learn about cars and mathematics and engineering because not only are you learning it but you're actually putting it to a real world application," said Student Competitor Robert Ross.

"Definitely electrical there are a lot of laws like Ohms law you gotta device numbers and everything you get two numbers and then you need to find the other one that's one of the ways you usually use math in the car," said Student Competitor Kevin Herrera.

More than $3 million worth of prizes and scholarships are given out to finalists. The winners get, among other prizes, a new car to work on for their school.

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