On September 10, CablePrice’s Wellington branch entered 4
technicians in this year’s Isuzu Trucks I1-GP national technical skills
competition taking out 4 of the 5 top spots including Luke Heesterman coming
first place!
Due to Covid-19 restrictions, this year’s competition was held in
a new format. All competition tasks had to be completed remotely at dealerships
and the contestants were supervised by their Service Managers. This year saw 11
contestants from two dealerships. CablePrice Wellington had 4 participants
while CAL Isuzu Hamilton had 7 participants.
The competition consisted of two parts – Theory Exam and Practical
Scenarios. During the Theory Exam each contestant had to answer 25 general
mechanical knowledge questions in no longer than 75 minutes. Exam questions
were borrowed from past years worldwide I1-GP Tournaments. This gave the
Contestants a taste of language used by Japan and the level of knowledge
expected to be seen by Isuzu Motors Limited.
For the practical part, contestants had to troubleshoot two real breakdown
situations seen in New Zealand earlier this year. For the first scenario, it
was necessary to troubleshoot a DPD (Diesel Particulate Diffuser) fault, and
for the second they had to identify a faulty component in an electrical system.
Contestants had not only to identify the malfunctioning component, but also
explain the mechanism of the failure and describe how the faulty part affects
the operation of other systems in the truck. Luke scored top points from the
practical section, while Paul Everson from CAL Isuzu Hamilton, was the best in
the theory exam.
“CablePrice Wellington has a strong record with 3 technicians
attending the world finals over the past 5 years, including Luke attending the
2017 world finals. Now he’s back again to give the 2020 Isuzu I1-GP
e-Competition a shot” Says Matthew Dittmer, CablePrice Wellington Branch
Manager
Luke and Paul will make a strong team, which will be representing
New Zealand in the international final of the I1-GP e-Competition against 86
participants from 43 countries.
The New Zealand team will travel to the Isuzu NZ Auckland Training
Centre in November and will be completing tasks online while they are live
streamed to Japan.