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| November 25, 2006 News |
| PROgression: Ron Sutton’s Winner Circle |
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Ron Sutton’s Winner’s Circle is an independent talent scout and driver career development program for pro teams in NASCAR, IRL and Champ Car. The RSWC team performs an annual talent search and on-track shoot out. In 2006, 520 drivers submitted their resumes vying for positions in the Ron Sutton's Winner's Circle (RSWC) program for the 2007 season.
The field was narrowed to 112 talented drivers for interviews then 23 young guns were chosen to test in RSWC race cars. Each year, the talent pool gets deeper. The 2006 talent search “Shoot Out” was the toughest to date but very rewarding with 11 new drivers chosen for the RSWC program.
This career development program, owned and managed by Ron and Kim Sutton, of Sacramento, CA is on a quest to find and develop young drivers for professional car racing careers. RSWC is developing 23 drivers in 2007, in 11 different racing series. Multiple race teams, coaches and trainers are involved, with one goal to groom, coach, test, train, race, and mold these young stars of tomorrow into what pro teams want in their drivers. The final 2007 driver line up is:
| Driver | Age | Hometown | Primary 2007 Series | Team| Porter Smith* | 22 | Aztec, NM | SRL Super Late Models | BRE | | Benny Moon | 21 | Shingle Springs, CA | NASCAR Late Model | BMR | | Bobby Grewohl | 20 | Hollister, CA | NASCAR Late Model | BMR | | Ryan Kaplan | 20 | Chico, CA | USAC Sprint Cars | RSWC | | Jimmy Pelk | 20 | Port Alberni, Canada | NASCAR Canadian Tire Series | TBD | | Paul Zimmerly | 20 | Ridgefield, WA | USAC Midgets | DMS | | Thomas Merrill | 20 | Spreckels, CA | Pacific F2000 | PR1 | | Justin Melton* | | 19 | Flower Mound, TX | USAC Midgets | DMS | | Beau DeBard* | 19 | Reno, NV | TBD | TBD | | Chris Keller* | 18 | Green Brook, NJ | SCCA Formula Continental | Porter | | Viktor Sinzig* | 18 | Cupertino, Ca | SCCA Formula Continental | Porter | | Jace Meier | 17 | Las Vegas, NV | NASCAR Late Model | Huddleston | | Daniel Adler* | 17 | Belleville, IL | USAC Ford Focus Midgets | RSWC | | Matt Hauff* | 17 | Rohnert Park, CA | SCCA Formula Continental | Porter | | Mike Hill | 17 | Gilroy, CA | TBD | TBD | | Alex Schutte | 17 | Redding, CA | TBD | TBD | | Ian Miille | 16 | Pleasanton, CA | USAC Ford Focus Midgets | RSWC | | David Chapel* | 16 | Aurora, CO | SCCA Formula Ford | Porter | | Mark Atkinson | 15 | Seattle, WA | USAC Ford Focus Midgets | RSWC | | Brett Smrz* | 15 | Coeur d’ Alene, ID | SCCA Formula Ford | Porter | | Bobby Ellis* | 15 | Ashburn, VA | Skip Barber Regional Series | SB | | Jimmy Moon* | 14 | Shingle Springs, CA | Skip Barber Regional Series | SB | | Christian Stover | 14 | San Diego, CA | 1200 Mini-Sprints | Stover | | |
* Denotes the Driver is new to the program, coming through the recent shoot out.
Sutton has assembled seven key ingredients to create a comprehensive career development program that includes, career path planning, yearly development planning, racing in the appropriate series with a top notch team, driver coaching, career coaching, classroom training and extracurricular racing activities.
Sutton says, “A key part of our program is to get these up and coming drivers placed with top teams, capable of winning races on each and every outing. The teams we have as alliances are key.” Bill McAnally Racing (BMR) is a three time champion in NASCAR’s Grand National West series, formerly known as Winston West. BMR fields NASCAR Late Models for RSWC Drivers. DeBeaumont Motor Sports (DMS), led by multi-time Midget champ Marc DeBeaumont, runs RSWC drivers in the USAC Western Midget series. Both DMS and BMR are second year teams for the RSWC program.
Ron Sutton personally started and owns the four car USAC Ford Focus Midget team, when he found no independent teams in the series to place drivers with. Multi-time SCCA champions, Porter Racing, led by Neil Porter is the longest running RSWC alliance, dating back to 2003. Porter provides highly competitive Formula Fords and Formula Continentals/F2000’s for RSWC drivers.
Beebe Racing Enterprises (BRE), are multi-time champions in West Coast stock car racing. PR1, operated by Bobby Oergel, is best known for winning championships in various levels of formula car racing. Both BRE and PR1 are new additions to the RSWC team line up for 2007.
The driver coaches, besides Ron Sutton, consist of Jimmy Sills, Cory Kruseman, and Wally Pankratz. These open wheel legends are on tap as driver coaches on both dirt and asphalt, for RSWC drivers racing in USAC. In stock cars, BMR’s own Bill McAnally serves as driver coach.
On road race venues, in open wheel formula cars, Ross Bentley, creator of the Speed Secrets Boot Camps, and author of four Speed Secrets books, is one of two coaches for the road racing drivers. Memo Gidley, of IRL, Champ Car, Toyota Atlantic and Daytona Prototype fame, is the second coach for the young guns turning left and right. |
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