Fellows to Drive for Chevrolet in NASCAR Nextel Cup

Road racing specialist to pilot No. 1 Chevrolet Monte Carlo at Watkins Glen

DETROIT – Factory Corvette Racing driver Ron Fellows will pilot the No. 1 Nutter Butter/Nilla Wafers Chevrolet Monte Carlo for Dale Earnhardt, Inc. in this weekend's NASCAR Nextel Cup event at Watkins Glen in upstate New York. Fellows, widely recognized as one of North America's best and most diverse road racing drivers, has extensive experience at Watkins Glen and in NASCAR competition.

"We're excited to have Ron Fellows behind the wheel of one of our Chevy NASCAR Nextel Cup cars," said Doug Duchardt, GM Racing director. "Fellows is one of the finest racing drivers of the modern era yet he has a quality that is increasingly becoming extinct in motorsports today: the ability to compete successfully in a wide variety of equipment, regardless of the environment. As we saw last weekend, Fellows brought home a Cadillac victory at the SPEED World Challenge GT race in a car he had never driven. Fellows has an amazing ability to adapt to a variety of race cars which is evident by his wins in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck and Busch Series, the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the SPEED World Challenge."

Fellows has five NASCAR wins to his credit, including a number of stellar performances at Watkins Glen. In NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series competition, Fellows has two wins and three poles in 14 starts. Driving a Chevy CK for Billy Hess in 1997, he became the first Canadian to win a major NASCAR race since Earl Ross in 1974. Fellows went on to win the Watkins Glen event again in 1999. In the NASCAR Busch Series, the Canadian has three wins and two poles in five starts. His victory in 1998, driving for Joe Nemechek's Nemco Motorsports Team, gave Fellows the distinction of being the first non-American ever to win a Busch Series race. He went on to win in 2000 and 2001 at Watkins Glen, driving the Bully Hill Vineyards Chevy Monte Carlo.

Fellows currently leads the American Le Mans Series GTS drivers' championship race along with teammate Johnny O'Connell. A championship this year would be Fellows' third in three years and second as a co-champion with O'Connell. His racing duties in the month of August have varied in everything from stock cars to sports cars to sports sedans. Coming off a victory in the SPEED World Challenge GT for the factory Cadillac CTS-V racing team as well as a podium finish in the Corvette C5-R at Mosport, the Canadian has recently driven a wide variety of GM-powered racing cars.

"It's a good challenge to be able to adapt quickly to different types of race cars and I'm really looking forward to this weekend," said Fellows. "As a race car driver you never stop learning, and when the opportunity comes up to drive for Chevrolet in NASCAR I jump at the chance."