Apr. 07, 2006 - In 2005, 472 drivers submitted their resumes vying for positions in the Ron Sutton's Winner's Circle (RSWC) driver career development race team for the 2006 season. The field was narrowed to 90 talented drivers for interviews ... then 22 young guns chosen to test in RSWC race cars. Kart racers dominated the field with 20 of 22 spots. With the deepest field of talent to date ... the testing was grueling ... but very rewarding.

This race team, 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. After testing many racers, Ron has concluded the most talented and competitive racers come from karting. RSWC is developing 16 drivers this year, in several different racing series. Fifteen of the drivers came out of kart racing. Multiple car race teams, driver coaches and trainers will be 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.

Ron Sutton’s Winner’s Circle is an independent scout and driver career development program for pro teams in NASCAR, IRL and Champ Car. The RSWC Race Team performs a talent search and shootout similar to NASCAR giant Roush Racing.

The final 2006 line up includes four drivers racing in the California USAC Ford Focus Midget Pavement series. Jace Meier (17) of Las Vegas, Nevada is returning for 2006, having won four poles and two races as a rookie with RSWC in 2005. Paul Zimmerly (18) of Washington, was a finalist in the Red Bull Shootout, comes out of 360 dirt sprint cars. Both Levi Roberts (16) of Colorado and Ian Miille (16) of California are multi-time kart champions making their first venture into car racing. All four Focus Midget drivers will be driving for Ron Sutton’s personal team.

Ben Petter (23) of Washington and Ryan Kaplan (19) of Chico, California will be back in USAC Western Midgets for RSWC in 2006. Petter is running a family owned car out of Robert Beck’s shop. Kaplan won races in USAC Western Midgets and Focus Midgets. Ryan is returning in a Marc DeBeaumont tuned/DMS preped Midget.

Jimmy Pelk (19) of Canada will be driving Sprint Cars in the USAC Western Sprint Car series in the two-time champion cars of SRS Motorsports, under the RSWC development banner. Legendary tuner, Louie Gennuso has been tapped to tune for Bobby Grewohl (19) of California, also in a USAC Western Sprint Car. The Target Ganassi Indy Car Team chose Bobby Grewohl as their first IRL development driver in 2004.

Open wheel legends Jimmy Sills, Cory Kruseman, Wally Pankratz and Paul Durant are on tap as driver coaches on both dirt and asphalt, for RSWC drivers racing in USAC.

On road race venues in open wheel formula cars are Mike Hill (16), Alex Schutte (16) and Thomas Merrill (19), all from California. Mike and Alex are racing Formula Fords with national champions and RSWC alliance, Porter Racing, while Thomas is in Porter’s F2000 Formula Continental.

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.

Benny Moon (21) of Shingle Springs, California, tested and earned a seat in the Bill McAnally Racing NASCAR Late Model Stock Car. Bill McAnally Racing (BMR) is three time champions in NASCAR’s Grand National West series, formerly known as Winston West. Benny will be racing in the NASCAR Weekly Racing Series, sponsored by Dodge. Juan Pitta (22) of Galt, California is plugged into a Stock Car training program, also with BMR, in preparation for testing with NASCAR’s Drive For Diversity program.

Three young drivers that did not come through the RSWC Shootout, only because of their age, are Zach Zimmerly (12) of Washington, Christian Stover (13) of California and Mark Atkinson (14) also of Washington. Ron Sutton scouted these young kart racers and signed them to the same driver career development program as the older drivers, as “Drivers in Training" in preparation for their car racing careers. These three very young guns will be racing karts on asphalt and 600 Micro Sprints on dirt in 2006, plus driving full size race cars as training.

More information is available at http://www.winners-circle-racing.com