Winners Circle Project: Another Great Year!
A big congratulations to everyone involved in this year’s Winners Circle Project! The dedication and spirit behind this program are incredible. We are so fortunate to see it grow and thrive. Five schools—Waverly, Roosevelt, Owego, Ketcham, and John Jay—participated. Next year, there will be six schools! Each school completes their own Factory Five build. Cars were delivered to Lime Rock, and students presented their marketing projects. Ketcham Racing won this year’s championship title by a few points!
Winners Circle combines hands-on work with marketing and team management. The grading includes build quality, sim racing, pro evaluation by Trans Am champion Chris Dyson for 0-60, slalom, and ergonomics, and marketing and teamwork. The marketing projects students tackle include commercials, logos, a website, and participation.
This year had unprecedented student involvement, especially from female students! Many students have entered industries like aircraft and motorsports marketing.
The kits are purchased by the Winners Circle Project. For each of the Participating Schools, the schools then have from September until mid April to finish the cars then send them for inspections and testing. The car build itself is only 50% of the project. The other 50% is the Marketing side of the program. In the end all the cars must be sold to finance next year’s builds.
Traveling builder Mark Dougherty has been involved in the program builds and says, “We asked them to finish their cars three months sooner than is typical, and both Factory Five and the students delivered! These builds are fantastic!! A testament to the importance of teamwork, Nate J. and Madison S. at Factory Five helped us receive our orders as soon as possible to get these projects running! The amount of comments we have had on this program is insane. So many people ask, ‘Where was this program when I was in school?’”
Each school builds the car to their own theme, and designs. Here are the rest of the Winners Circle Factory Five Mk4s Specifications:
IRS
15” halibrands
4 wheel disc brakes.
Powered by: 400HP 302 small block Fords
From Accelerated machine in PA.
Mated to world class T-5z trans from Hanlon Motorsports.
Some schools installed their own EFI, while others stayed with the supplied Carburetors.
Congratulations to Winners Circle Project students and teachers! Cheers to another year of building excellence and creating unforgettable experiences!
