MCC students advance to Elite 8 in 2025 Mopar CAP Bracket Challenge
Brian Ayers
Media and Public Relations manager | October 15, 2025
Metropolitan Community College Mopar CAP students passed the test. Now the team will have a rematch with the defending Mopar CAP Bracket Challenge national champion with a trip to the Final Four on the line.
The MCC Mopar CAP program, which the College began offering in 2023, is part of a nationwide effort by Mopar to train and employ entry-level automotive technicians for Chrysler, Jeep, Dodge and Ram dealerships. The Mopar CAP Bracket Challenge brings together Mopar CAP partner schools throughout the country to participate in friendly technical and curriculum-based competitions.
Last week, four MCC students, all concurrently employed with local automotive dealerships while completing the Mopar CAP program at the College, helped the team advance out of the first round of the tournament by passing a test covering Mopar CAP curriculum.
Nick Smith (Woodhouse Blair), Connor Jensen (H&H Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, Ram), Daniel Grabowski (H&H Chrysler, Dodge Jeep, Ram) and Nathan Kraemer (Sid Dillon Lincoln) guided MCC to the head-to-head win over Mass Bay Community College (Wellesley, Mass.), setting the stage for an Elite 8 battle featuring two of the nation’s leading Mopar CAP programs. MCC will compete against SUNY Morrisville (Morrisville, N.Y.), last year’s Bracket Challenge champion, in the mock interview round of this year’s competition.
As part of its first-round activities, the Mopar CAP team also visited with a Mopar CAP Express Lane representative. Students shared their experiences participating in the program at MCC during an advisory committee meeting.
Taylor Dixson, 25, is a mother of two participating in the program at MCC. She had previously pursued an automotive degree at another community college after finishing high school but didn’t feel it was the right fit for her. The support she receives through the Mopar CAP program at MCC has made her return to college a better experience, she said.
“[At the other college] they just threw you in the lab with a ‘figure-it-out’ attitude and it didn’t feel like they cared if you understood the information or not. I felt intimidated as a woman. [At MCC] the instructors really care about you as a person and understand that life happens. They also help you understand the information if you are struggling,” she said.
Brad Dieckmann, an MCC Mopar CAP program instructor who is working with the students throughout the Bracket Challenge, credited the team’s preparation for a difficult test to advancing out of the first round of the tournament.
In Round 2, two MCC students will submit résumés and participate in mock job interviews with Mopar CAP relationship managers. They will be scored based on their responses to interview questions, their professionalism, engagement in the interview and more.
“In addition to having strong mechanical knowledge and a solid technology background, the soft skills that our students will be demonstrating in the second round are a major point of focus in our program. We carve out time every day in class to work through situations that come up and require good soft skills because handling the workload and stress while maintaining professionalism are so important for the customer-facing side of the job,” Dieckmann said.
If MCC makes it to the next round, the Final Four, they will travel to the Stellantis Tech Training Center in Kansas City where they will partake in timed and judged technical challenges using skills they’ve learned in the Mopar CAP program to diagnose and service vehicles with a range of issues. From there, two finalist schools will compete in Auburn Hills, Mich., the home of the Mopar National Tech Training Center, for the chance to bring a 2018 Dodge Demon Charger back to campus.
Dieckmann said he likes the team’s chances of continuing on in the tournament. Second round competition wraps up Oct. 22.
“I have no doubt that our team will excel,” Dieckmann said.
Visit mccneb.edu/Mopar-CAP for more information about the MCC Mopar CAP program.