CENTER TWP— Brian Ellenberger has spent the past decade climbing the ladder in the Sprint racing world.

Now he's reaching for the top rung.

Ellenberger, 42, of Center Township will compete full time with the World of Outlaws in 2009. He raced in the All-Star Circuit of Champions series the past two seasons.

"It takes the right combination to make a move like this and I feel like that time is now,"Ellenberger said.

ASprint car racer since 1996, Ellenberger has 15 career feature wins, including a career-high five last season. He won his first All-Star series race and third career Lernerville Speedway feature last summer.

Ellenberger's prime sponsor will be Ti22 Performance, a new company in Zelienople that is a full-service designer and manufacturer of lightweight Sprint car components.

Ellenberger's car will be No. 22. His car was No. 20E over the past few seasons.

"One of that company's owners lives down the street from me and they had interest in teaming up,"Ellenberger said. "It's a natural partnership."

Todd Hutchison has been Ellenberger's crew chief for the past six years and will remain in that capacity. The crew is looking to add one more person for the 2009 campaign.

"We've been interviewing people. We want someone who's familiar with the Outlaws series and all of the different tracks,"Ellenberger said.

"This is going to be a difficult hire because there's not a lot of people with those qualifications available."

Ellenberger said he has never seen or raced on 70 percent of the tracks on the Outlaws' 2009 schedule.

He is used to qualifying for races through time trials on the All-Star circuit.

"Having run with the All-Stars and time trialled every night should help quite a bit,"Ellenberger said. "The competition with the All-Stars was very tough as well and I think that helped raise the bar for me quite a bit."

Ellenberger finished fifth in points on the All-Stars circuit last year, putting together 11 top-10 finishes.

He is one of three rookie drivers committed to the full Outlawsschedule next year. One of the others is Dan Simpson, a 64-year-old from California who has been running a Sprint car for only two years.

The other is one of Simpson's teammates, Destiney Hays. Simpson owns her car.

"(Simpson) has been very successful in business and has a lot of money,"said Outlaws public relations director Tony Veneziano. "Dan's always wanted to race a Sprint car. It's like a hobby to him and he wants to give the Outlaws series a try.

"Destiney is 26 and has been racing for seven or eight years, but Brian is a more accomplished driver. Right now, he should have little trouble winning the Gobrecht award, though you never know what other rookie drivers may opt into the series late."

The Kevin Gobrecht Rookie of the Year Award is presented annually to the top rookie driver on the Outlaws tour. There were 18 full-time drivers in the series last year with Lucas Wolfe being the lone rookie.

"It's a challenging series in terms of longevity and number of races,"Veneziano said. "But the 2009 schedule cuts out 15,000 miles in travel, so that will help the race teams a lot."

"I'm used to the traveling, but now I'm going to be away from home for a long period of time,"Ellenberger said. "My wife supports me 100 percent on this or I wouldn't be doing it.

"Hopefully, my family can get to the tracks a lot during the summer. We're going to try to arrange that."

Ellenberger and his wife Raelene have been married 16 years. They have two children, daughter Brianna, 13, and Broc, 11.

Ellenberger was involved with a business in the building industry for 20 years until he gave it up before the last racing season.

"I miss the people I worked with more than the business itself," he said. "To commit to a racing career, it had to be done.

Besides winning the Gobrecht Award, Ellenberger lists a top-10 finish in points and a feature win as his goals on the Outlaws circuit next year.

The 2009 Outlaws season begins Feb. 6 to 8 at Volusia Speedway Park in Florida. The 76-race schedule concludes Nov. 7 and includes stops at Lernerville July 21 and Sept. 26.

"Those will be two very special nights for me,"Ellenberger said.