Northern Tool + Equipment has spent several years delivering special experiences to high school students around the country with its Tools for the Trades program. Now, the project is taking on the world of American Flat Track motorcycle racing.
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The tool company headed to Middle Tennessee on Tuesday for a special unveiling. Northern Tool + Equipment announced that the students of LaVergne High School would have 174 days to take a 2025 Harley-Davidson Nightster and convert it into a race-ready XR750-inspired motorcycle.
The surprises continued as the students learned they will work with a packed lineup of mentors while building this machine. They will lean on former NASCAR driver Kyle Petty, who joins hundreds of motorcycle riders for his annual Charity Ride across America.
"I was raised at race tracks," Petty said in a press release. "It's in my blood, but nothing compares to handing the torch to the next generation.
"These students aren't just building a motorcycle — they're building confidence, skills, and a future in the trades."
These high school students will also work with nine-time AMA Grand National Champion Scott Parker, three-time AMA Grand National Champion Jay Springsteen, seven-time AMA Grand National Champion Chris Carr, Hall of Fame motorcycle builder Dave Perewitz, and iconic chopper builder/owner of Choppers, Inc. Billy Lane.
"I'm right here in Franklin, Tennessee, which is only 30 minutes from here, so I'm going to be able to be really hands-on with them, and spend time with them, and help them," Lane told FanBuzz on Tuesday afternoon.
"I was one of these kids 40 years ago. I was a teenager who was learning how to do stuff with his hands."
The big difference between Lane's childhood and his role as a mentor is the amount of equipment available. DeWalt, Milwaukee Tools, Harley-Davidson, and American Flat Track have donated tens of thousands of dollars in tools and equipment. The high school shop has become a place where these students have access to anything they would ever need to dismantle a motorcycle and build another one almost from scratch.
Photo credit: Northern Tool + Equipment
This project is not Lane's first partnership with Northern Tool + Equipment. He previously joined the company and NASCAR Hall of Famer Richard Petty to mentor two groups of high school students in Minneapolis as they built Rat Rod Go-Karts. Now, he returns while going back to the roots he created as a youngster while helping his brother work on motorcycles.
He also gets to embrace the opportunity to watch students learn invaluable skills from some icons of the motorcycle world.
"For them to have someone like Scott (Parker) involved and these Flat Track legends that these students were not even born when those guys were racing in their heyday, but they're going to go online and realize that they're standing next to and working with and being mentored by real legends," Lane added.
"People who've really achieved... I mean, Scott's an elite athlete, and it really achieves showing these kids, 'Hey, not only can we teach you how to work with a tool and do something with your hands, but we teach you how to be a success and how you operate on an elite level in whatever it is you decide to do.'"
Like Lane, Parker grew up tinkering with machines. He just did so while winning amateur championships and powering through some nights with relatively little sleep.
Sometimes, Parker would tear apart the lawn mower to see how it functioned. Other times, he worked on motorcycles so that he could get ready for the next race on his schedule.
"We drove home from a race all night and we blew the bike up and we got home and (my dad) says, 'Well, I gotta sleep, son,'" Parker told FanBuzz. "It's like four in the morning. He goes, 'Well, if you could tear that bike totally ready, and I can put a new crank in it and we can head to the race tomorrow afternoon.
"'I can put it together, but I need four or five hours worth of sleep.' I took and tore the bike all apart. My dad woke up at 10 o'clock in the morning, put the thing all back together and the next thing you know, we were going racing that day. And that's the dedication and stuff that I had and just wanted to do."
This dedication is something that Parker, Lane, and the other mentors can teach these students over the next nine months as they tear down this Harley-Davidson and convert it into a Flat Track machine. These students will enjoy a once-in-a-lifetime experience while also learning how these skills are still so crucial as the world moves further toward automation.
"I think you always need people that have got hand skills," Parker said. "You're always going to need that. You can't automate everything.
"You've got to have hand skills and you've got to have a brain that can figure out — just for instance, if I looked at a gear and you looked at a gear, I would go, 'Wow, okay, it's wearing here, but it's not wearing there.' So there's also stuff that you learn when you actually work with your hands that you can't get nowhere else."
These mentors also get to show these students that they don't have to follow the traditional paths into the white collar world. They can learn a valuable trade and build a successful career working with their hands.
Although a few students have already gotten a head start before taking on this nine-month project.
"A girl came up to me today and she goes, 'Hey, I want to get a picture with you,'" Parker said. "She's one of the students, and she was so excited. We took a picture out there, and I go, 'Well, that's so cool. You're going to be learning how to weld.'
"She goes, 'This is my third year in welding,' and I go, 'Right on!' You know what I mean? So here's a girl that just did two years worth of welding, and I think that's awesome! And then she's going to be part of this program."
This welding experience will be invaluable for the students. As Lane explained, they aren't simply retrofitting this Nightster that Harley-Davidson provided. No, they will have to create their own parts while adhering to the strict specifications of American Flat Track.
"We're going to use the engine and the electronic control module off of it, and then the rest of it's going to go to the Gods of Dismantled Harley-Davidsons," Lane quipped. "I mean, that's where the rest of it's going to go. We have to make a frame for it and build the suspension and everything else.
"So, we're going to be welding a lot, which is one of the most valuable skills that we can teach these kids. For me, (the most valuable tool) is going to be the welder that we're going to use, because we're going to have to make most of the stuff to turn this street motorcycle into a proper Flat Track motorcycle."
Lane is no stranger to making custom parts. After all, he is the person who invented the hubless rear wheel for a custom chopper. On paper, this defied all laws of physics, but it all existed due to some ingenuity on his part.
And while it could be fun to install a hubless rear wheel on this Flat Track machine, Lane knows that it isn't possible due to the specifications they have to follow during the build process.
"I think it'd be pretty cool," Lane said while laughing. "We were just talking (Monday) with the American Flat Track guys and saying how they thought it was impossible to put this Revolution (liquid-cooled) engine that's in this Nightster in a flat track bike.
"And I had the hubless bike and I said, 'If I can do that, I can do this. So as big of a challenge as it is, I've done bigger.'"
The students of LaVergne High School will reveal the completed build on June 6, 2026, at Tennessee National Raceway. The Flat Track machine will go on auction with proceeds benefiting the Tools for the Trades program, Kyle Petty's Victory Junction camp, and the AMA Motorcycle Hall of Fame.
