Ron Fellows

Ron Fellows

status	active
NASCAR Cup Series statistics
Best placement	43rd - (2007)
Starts Victories Poles Top 10 25th 0 0 5
NASCAR Xfinity Series Statistics
Best placement	39th - (2011)
Starts Victories Poles Top 10 25th 4th 2 15th
NASCAR Camping World Truck Series statistics
Best placement	35th - (1999)
Starts Victories Poles Top 10 15th 2 3 5
Data status: November 17, 2013

Chevrolet Corvette C6.R of Ron Fellows and Johnny O'Connell in the 2006 Laguna Seca 4 Hours

Ron Fellows in the Chevrolet Impala at the Bucyrus 200 2011

Ron Fellows (born September 28, 1959 in Windsor ) is a former Canadian racing driver and entrepreneur.

Career in motorsport

First years

Ron Fellows became interested in motorsport at a young age. The 1982 during practice for the Belgian Grand Prix in 1982 was killed Gilles Villeneuve was the great idol of his youth. Fellows owned one of the Canadian racing driver's largest collections of merchandise .

After starting out in karting , he began to drive monopostor races in Formula Ford in the late 1970s . However, the Fellows lacked the financial means to operate motorsport in the long term and had to end his ambitions after just one year. He then worked as a simple worker on a Canadian gas pipeline for almost a decade .

Sports car racing

With money saved, he returned to motorsport in the mid-1980s. He attended a racing driver school and was also supported afterwards by his driver instructor, the former racing driver Richard Spénard . In contrast to his first attempts, this time he was involved in sports car racing . He had his first professional engagements in the Trans-Am series, where in 1987 he finished fourth in a race in Road Atlanta and achieved his first place in the Eies final classification. In the years that followed, Fellows stayed in the Trans-Am series. With 19 overall victories in 95 races, he became one of the most successful drivers in this racing series. Despite these many individual victories, he was denied an overall victory in the championship. In 1993 (behind Scott Sharp ), 1994 (behind Scott Pruett ) and 1995 (behind Tommy Kendall ) he was runner-up. 1996 third overall behind Kendall and Dorsey Schroeder .

1993 , he played on a Ford Mustang its first 24 Hours of Daytona and won in 1997 together with Rob Morgan on a Ferrari 333 SP , the two-hour race at Mosport . The race was part of the 1997 IMSA GT series and was his first win in an international sports car race.

In 1998 the long-term cooperation with General Motors and Corvette Racing began. Fellows was in the development and race preparation of the new race car type, the C5-R involved, and later also drove the successor model, the C6.R . In North America he was involved in the American Le Mans Series , in Europe he contested the 24 Hours of Le Mans . At the Daytona 2000 24-hour race , he narrowly missed out on overall victory. With partners Chris Kneifel and Justin Bell , the winning trio Olivier Beretta , Dominique Dupuy and Karl Wendlinger on a Chrysler Viper GTS-R were just 31 seconds away after a 24-hour drive . The following year the overall victory followed in Daytona .

Three times in a row, in 2002 , 2003 and 2004 , he secured the overall standings in the GTS class of the American Le Mans Series. In 2001 and 2002 he clinched class victory at the Le Mans 24-hour race; In 2002 , 2003 , 2004 and in his last Corvette year 2008, he won the class at the 12-hour race in Sebring .

NASCAR

During his time at Corvette Racing, Fellows drove sporadic races in NASCAR . He made his debut in 1995 at the Cheez-It 355 at The Glen in Watkins Glen . At this racing event, he also had his last racing appearance in 2013. In between there were a total of 65 starts in the Sprint Cup , the Xfinity Series and the Camping World Truck Series . While not winning the Sprint Cup, he won four Xfinity Series races and two truck events in his career.

Entrepreneur

After his racing career ended, he opened the Ron Fellows Performance Driving School and purchased the Mosport circuit . Ron Fellows is married and has a father of three.

Chevrolet Corvette C6 RF Edition

The Z06 "Ron Fellows Edition" ("RF Edition" for short) of the Corvette C6 was exclusively produced in 2007, a total of 399 copies were made. 300 units were delivered in the United States, 66 in Canada and the remaining 33 vehicles in various countries.

statistics

Le Mans results

year	team	vehicle	Teammate	Teammate	placement	Failure reason
2000	Corvette Racing Garry Pratt	Chevrolet Corvette C5-R	Justin Bell	Chris Kneifel	Rank 11
2001	Corvette Racing	Chevrolet Corvette C5-R	Scott Pruett	Johnny O'Connell	Rank 8 and class win
2002	Corvette Racing	Chevrolet Corvette C5-R	Oliver Gavin	Johnny O'Connell	11th place and class win
2003	Corvette Racing	Chevrolet Corvette C5-R	Franck Fréon	Johnny O'Connell	Rank 12
2004	Corvette Racing	Chevrolet Corvette C5-R	Massimiliano Papis	Johnny O'Connell	Rank 8
2005	Corvette Racing	Chevrolet Corvette C6.R	Massimiliano Papis	Johnny O'Connell	Rank 6
2006	Corvette Racing	Chevrolet Corvette C6.R	Massimiliano Papis	Johnny O'Connell	Rank 12
2007	Corvette Racing	Chevrolet Corvette C6.R	Jan Magnussen	Johnny O'Connell	Rank 6
2008	Corvette Racing	Chevrolet Corvette C6.R	Jan Magnussen	Johnny O'Connell	Rank 14

Sebring results

year	team	vehicle	Teammate	Teammate	placement	Failure reason
1998	CJ Motorsports	Porsche 911 GT2	John Morton	John Graham	Rank 8
1999	Corvette Racing	Chevrolet Corvette C5-R	John Paul Junior	Chris Kneifel	Rank 22
2000	Corvette Racing	Chevrolet Corvette C5-R	Justin Bell	Chris Kneifel	failure	Valve damage
2001	Corvette Racing	Chevrolet Corvette C5-R	Johnny O'Connell	Chris Kneifel	Rank 11
2002	Corvette Racing	Chevrolet Corvette C5-R	Johnny O'Connell	Oliver Gavin	9th place and class win
2003	Corvette Racing	Chevrolet Corvette C5-R	Johnny O'Connell	Franck Fréon	Rank 8 and class win
2004	Corvette Racing	Chevrolet Corvette C5-R	Johnny O'Connell	Massimiliano Papis	4th place and class win
2005	Corvette Racing	Chevrolet Corvette C6.R	Johnny O'Connell	Massimiliano Papis	Rank 5
2006	Corvette Racing	Chevrolet Corvette C6.R	Johnny O'Connell	Massimiliano Papis	Rank 7
2007	Corvette Racing	Chevrolet Corvette C6.R	Johnny O'Connell	Jan Magnussen	Rank 8
2008	Chevrolet Corvette Racing	Chevrolet Corvette C6.R	Johnny O'Connell	Jan Magnussen	Rank 8 and class win

Web links

Commons : Ron Fellows  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Official website
• Ron Fellows at Corvette Racing
• Ron Fellows at the Driver Database
• Ron Fellows at Racing Sports Cars

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Trans-Am-Race Road Atlanta 1987
2. ↑ Trans-Am series 1993
3. ↑ Trans-Am series 1994
4. ↑ Trans-Am series 1995
5. ↑ Trans-Am series 1996
6. ↑ 24 Hours of Daytona 2000
7. ↑ 2001 Daytona 24 Hours