Ron Fellows drew the eyes of many NASCAR Cup Series owners, including Dale Earnhardt, Inc., in the late 1990s and the 2000s due to his success on road courses.
So much so, in fact, that in an interview in the new episode of RaceLine, Fellows shared that he was close to becoming a regular presence — perhaps even a full-time driver — for DEI, though he ultimately turned it down.
“I had conversations, certainly with a couple of organizations, DEI being one of them,” Fellows said. “The issue for me was getting those opportunities into my 40s and having to give up the sports car racing. I didn’t want to do that.”
Fellows turned down full-time Cup Series racing to continue sports car racing, in which he amassed 27 ALMS victories and three ALMS championships with Corvette Racing. Fellows also competed with Corvette in Le Mans, with the team collecting its first class win in 2001.
“In the early 2000s there were a couple of opportunities to do Cup full time, [but] we were just starting to win with Corvette,” Fellow said. “To give that up, I wasn’t prepared to do it.”
Fellows’ road-course prowess was seen in the NASCAR world when he collected his first NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series win at Watkins Glen International in 1997 with owner Billy Ness. He went on to run more one-off races in the lower series, collecting three wins in the NASCAR Xfinity Series for Nemco Motorsports.
“The Truck win in ’97 was the building block for getting more opportunities,” he said. “Winning with Nemco and working with [crew chief] Brian Pattie from ’98 through 2000, where we won three Busch Series races and another Truck race, led to opportunities with Buzz McCall, then NEMCO and then DEI.”
Fellows’ relationship with DEI started in 2001 as he assisted both Dale Earnhardt and Dale Earnhardt Jr. in their efforts to compete in the 24 Hours of Daytona. Corvette finished one-two in 2001, with Fellows collecting the victory with his team.
“The Cup opportunity with DEI was a result of the relationship with the Earnhardts at the Rolex 24 at Daytona in 2001,” he said. “When Steve Park got hurt in ’03, I got a call from Ty Norris. He said, Hey, we’d love for you to drive the car at Sonoma [Raceway] and Watkins Glen.
“I did a number of races for DEI. One of the regrets I have is that we did not win, we came close a few times.”
The Canadian-born racer was inducted into the Corvette Hall of Fame in 2020 and the Trans Am Hall of Fame in 2025.
Watch the full episode, during which Fellows recaps his full racing career beyond NASCAR, above.
While I didn’t know this it was always suspected. I thought even then he wouldn’t want to give up the Corvette seat. Full time or not, it would’ve been interesting to see him in Cup with a stronger team.
Enjoyed watching Fellows back then. He was the first “road course ringer” I recall making a somewhat big splash. Impressive he ran as well as he did, with teams not having quite the depth of good equipment back then.
Fellows would have had a tough time adapting in that era. There were a handful of drivers who secured full time seats with backgrounds exclusively in road racing, but I don’t recall any having frequent success other than road courses.
There were fewer road courses on the schedule, and the more pure points system meant challenging for titles was all but impossible if you weren’t competitive for the brunt of the schedule. There was no silly “win and you’re in” in that era.