A Canadian who won the 2001 Daytona 24 Hours overall with Corvette Racing, took three American Le Mans Series titles and became one of NASCAR's most successful road course ringers.
Ron Fellows is a Canadian former racing driver who won the 2001 Daytona 24 Hours overall as a Corvette factory driver. He took three American Le Mans Series titles, raced NASCAR's road courses for many years and was awarded the Order of Canada in 2019.
Ron Fellows is a Canadian former auto racing driver and a long-term Corvette factory driver. He won the 2001 Daytona 24 Hours overall, took two Le Mans class wins and four class wins at Sebring, and became one of NASCAR's most successful road course ringers.
How did Fellows get started in racing?
Fellows was born in Windsor, Ontario, on 28 September 1959. He became interested in motorsport at the age of four, and after watching a Formula One race at the Ile Notre-Dame Circuit he began to idolise the French-Canadian driver Gilles Villeneuve.
Karting led to Formula Ford 1600 and then Formula Ford 2000 for him. Money trouble later forced a pause, and for several years he worked on gas pipelines. Driving school instructor Richard Spenard helped bring him back to the track.
From Windsor karting to a 2001 Daytona 24 Hours win and NASCAR road-course victories, Fellows built a career that spanned three decades.
What was his early Canadian racing like?
His first professional race came in 1986, in the Player's GM Challenge. A 1987 season ended with second in the final standings, despite a 25-second penalty at Shannonville Motorsport Park that dropped him from first to tenth in one race.
The next year he arrived at round seven as the championship leader over Spenard. A crash while running second took him out and handed Spenard both the win and the lead. He could not claw the points back, and he was runner-up again, for the second year in succession.
How did Fellows start in sports cars?
He began selective Trans-Am Series races in 1987, finishing fourth on debut at Road Atlanta. That result caught the eye of team owner Jack Roush, who gave him three Roush Racing starts in 1988, with fifth places at Road America and St. Petersburg and a third at Mosport.
In 1989 Fellows won his first Grand-Am Series race at Mosport, and he also took the Player's GM Challenge title that year. In 1990 he contested eleven Grand-Am races for Roush, finishing tenth in points, and he added podiums in the Rothmans Porsche Turbo Cup.
When did Fellows join Corvette Racing?
In 1998 Fellows started a long spell with GM's Corvette Racing effort, in the C5R. He also had a brief role in developing the Cadillac LMP programme.
The 2000 Rolex 24 at Daytona produced the closest finish in the event's history, with Fellows 31 seconds adrift of the Dodge Viper GTS-R that won, whose crew included Olivier Beretta. The following year the Corvette won overall, and Corvette Racing also took the ALMS GTS title.
What did Corvette Racing win at Le Mans and Sebring?
That June Corvette Racing reached a long-held target, a GTS class victory at Le Mans, shared by Scott Pruett and Johnny O'Connell. The Corvette C5R won that class again in 2002, and that year it also took the GTS class at Sebring.
The team won the ALMS GTS title in 2003 by a narrow margin over the Prodrive Ferrari 550, and in 2004 it again dominated the class, with another GTS win at Sebring.
What happened to Corvette Racing in 2005 and 2006?
The Chevrolet Corvette C6R debuted at Sebring in 2005, but a tyre blowout ended its chance of the GT1 win. Later that year Corvette won its third Le Mans class title in six years, although Fellows was not in the winning car and drove the No. 63 entry instead.
The 2006 season was controversial because of IMSA's performance balancing. Prodrive's Aston Martin team ran on Pirelli tyres that did not match the Michelin tyres on the Corvettes, and IMSA introduced penalties for Corvette Racing. The team still won its fifth ALMS championship and a fourth Le Mans title in six years, while the title in the sister car went to Jan Magnussen, Olivier Beretta and Oliver Gavin.
What was Fellows's role in 2007?
In 2007 his role with Corvette shrank to a supporting one. He was the third driver for three endurance races and ran at Mosport, his home track, while advising from the pit wall for the rest of the year.
How did Fellows become a NASCAR road course ringer?
Over the years Fellows drove in the Camping World Truck Series, the Nationwide Series and the Sprint Cup Series, usually as a road course ringer. He won twice in trucks at Watkins Glen, and his Nationwide numbers were stronger, with four victories and two poles in six outings.
He was also the first non-American to take a Nationwide Series victory. By 22 November 2011 no foreign-born driver had more top-three NASCAR wins than his six, of which four came in Nationwide and two in trucks.
What was Fellows's first Cup start like?
His Cup debut came in 1995, in a Chevy numbered 68 for Canaska Motorsports, a team run by Victor Sifton. He performed poorly, and he then stepped down to a part-time schedule in the Craftsman Truck Series.
He came back to Cup in 1998 with a Caterpillar-sponsored Chevy numbered 96, run by American Equipment Racing with Buzz McCall. Starting second alongside Jeff Gordon, he lost an axle on lap 12, and he finished 42nd. He ran one oval race in the same car at Loudon, finishing 36th.
How did Fellows win in the Truck and Busch series?
Late in the 1990s he won Truck Series races at Watkins Glen in 1997 and 1999, the first for Billy Hess and the second for NEMCO Motorsports.
On 28 June 1998 he won his first Busch Series race, the Lysol 200. Polesitter Boris Said spun on lap one, and Fellows led 54 of the 82 laps before holding off Mike McLaughlin. In 1999 Dale Earnhardt Jr. passed him on the final lap, but in 2000 he took the Lysol 200 once more, ahead of Corvette teammate Butch Leitzinger.
What was Fellows's Cup record at Watkins Glen?
His best Cup result at Watkins Glen came in August 1999, driving for Joe Nemechek in the No. 87 Chevy. In his only scheduled Cup race for 1999, at the Frontier at the Glen, he led three laps before Gordon beat him on the final restart.
The 2003 Infineon race, the Dodge/Save Mart 350, was his best chance of a road course win. He started third and led much of the race, but a pit call after a caution with 38 laps to go dropped him to 31st, and he recovered to seventh.
What was the 2004 Watkins Glen result?
In 2004 qualifying was cancelled because of rain, so the grid was set by owner points. Fellows started 43rd and finished second behind Tony Stewart, having challenged him on the final restart after a charge through the field.
In a 2025 interview he revealed that he had been offered a full-time No. 1 ride for 2005 and beyond. He declined, citing his success with Corvette Racing and the difficulty of moving from sports cars to stock cars as an older Cup rookie.
What did Fellows do with JR Motorsports?
The 2008 season brought a single start, for JR Motorsports at Montreal, and it ended in victory. Driving the No. 5 car, Fellows took the rain-shortened NAPA race at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve after Marcos Ambrose was black-flagged for speeding on wet pit road. It was the first points-paying race run on Goodyear rain tyres.
The win was his fourth in the Nationwide Series, all on road courses, which tied Terry Labonte for the most road-course wins in that series. He had grown up dreaming of winning at Montreal, the track where Villeneuve had raced. JR Motorsports then signed him to a multi-year deal for road course races.
What happened at Road America in 2011?
At Road America in the 2011 Bucyrus 200, Fellows drove the No. 7 AER car for JR Motorsports and passed Justin Allgaier, who had run dry, for first. NASCAR later judged that he had overtaken two cars under caution at excessive speed, which dropped him to second and handed Reed Sorenson the win.
Fellows said afterwards that he should have won, but he later admitted in a pre-race interview that NASCAR had made the right call. In 2010 and 2011 he also drove for Tommy Baldwin Racing at Watkins Glen, finishing 40th after an engine failure in 2010 and 30th in 2011 after a crash in the esses.
How did Fellows's last NASCAR seasons go?
The following year Fellows could not find a Cup ride, but he ran the Nationwide road course races for JR Motorsports. He led four laps at Road America to finish third, and he was fifth at Watkins Glen and fifth again at Montreal. He ran his last race with the team at the inaugural Mid-Ohio event in 2013.
In 2013 he was back in Cup, in a Circle Sport Racing entry numbered 33. His best finish that year was 22nd at Infineon Raceway.
What honours and business interests does Fellows have?
The Trans-Am Series Hall of Fame added Fellows in 2025. Away from the cockpit he runs the Ron Fellows Performance Driving Schools, owns part of Corvette and its racing operations, and supports the Sunoco-Ron Fellows Karting Championship for young drivers.
On 1 June 2011 Fellows, together with Carlo Fidani and Allan Boughton, announced the creation of Canadian Motorsport Ventures, a company that had just completed its purchase of Mosport International Raceway. On 31 December 2019, in the New Year Honours, he was made a member of the Order of Canada for his work in motor racing.
What are the key results in one table?
| Year | Series or event | Result |
|---|---|---|
| 1988 | Trans-Am, Roush Racing | Fifth at Road America and St. Petersburg; third at Mosport |
| 1989 | Grand-Am Series, Mosport | First Grand-Am victory |
| 1989 | Player's GM Challenge | Champion |
| 2000 | Rolex 24 at Daytona | Closest margin of victory in the event's history, 31 seconds |
| 2001 | Rolex 24 at Daytona | Overall winner with Corvette Racing |
| 2001 | 24 Hours of Le Mans, GTS class | Class win with Scott Pruett and Johnny O'Connell |
| 2002 to 2004 | American Le Mans Series | GTS title in each season |
| 1998 | NASCAR Busch Series, Lysol 200 | First Busch win; second win in 2000 |
| 2003 | NASCAR, Infineon | Seventh after a pit call with 38 laps to go |
| 2004 | NASCAR, Watkins Glen | Second behind Tony Stewart after starting 43rd |
| 2008 | NASCAR Nationwide, Montreal | Win on rain tyres; fourth Nationwide win |
| 2019 | Order of Canada | Awarded 31 December 2019 |
What is Fellows's legacy?
Fellows is remembered for two parallel careers, one in endurance sports car racing with Corvette and one as a road course specialist in NASCAR. His 2001 Daytona win and his Nationwide road-course record set him apart from many drivers of his era.
His recognition in Canada, including the Order of Canada, reflects his work beyond the track through driving schools, a karting championship and his role in Mosport's ownership.
