Fellows Nearly Earns Win for JRM at Road America

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JR Motorsports and Ron Fellows, driving the No. 7 AER Chevrolet, had its season-first win in hand in the final laps of Saturday’s Bucyrus 200 at Road America.  But a NASCAR ruling after the race was over forced Fellows to surrender the victory since his pass of Reed Sorenson happened just as the caution came out.  Sorenson was declared the winner and Fellows finished second.  For teammate Aric Almirola, his first race at the massive four-mile facility was a calculated one, and it nearly ended in a top-10 for the TaxSlayer.com team.  They ran in ninth until a tangle with a competitor on the final lap resulted in a 22nd-place finish.   Following Sorenson and Fellows to the line was Jacques Villeneuve, Elliott Sadler and Mike Wallace.

Fellows began his first race of 2011 with JRM in the fifth position.  From the drop of the green flag it became apparent that Fellows and the No. 7 AER Manufacturing team were contenders.   The team made a progressive move forward in the opening laps and ran in fourth by the race’s first caution on lap eight.

After the leader Michael McDowell ducked onto pit road on lap 18, Fellows inherited the top spot and led the next five laps.  He only gave up the top spot after the second caution flag flew, bringing the team to pit road. He lined up for the ensuing restart in 12th.

Fellows eventually drove his way back inside the top five by lap 30.  As the race wound down with two laps remaining in the 50-lap event, the No. 41 spun off of turn 11, setting the stage for a green-white-checkered finish.  Fellows ran in second, and the AER Manufacturing team had no concerns over fuel mileage.  Instead, the team’s biggest issue was a lack of front grip that prohibited Fellows from accelerating quickly on restarts.

After surviving two more cautions, Fellows remained in second for the race’s final green-white-checkered restart.  Fellows dropped to third on the restart behind Justin Allgaier and Reed Sorenson when the caution came again for a spinning car.  The field was frozen, but competitors were still required to maintain minimum speed.  When leader Justin Allgaier ran out of fuel and fell off the pace, Fellows maintained his speed to pass both the second-place car of Sorenson and Allgaier.  NASCAR scored Fellows as the leader and he took the checkered flag.  Upon review however, NASCAR determined Fellows’ pass of Sorenson happened after the caution had been displayed.  The ruling moved the No. 7 AER Chevrolet to a second-place finish.

“Everyone on this JR Motorsports team is frustrated with this ruling,” Fellows told media members after the race.  “Someone is going to have to sit down and explain it to me because I thought we had this thing won.  We got ourselves in a little bit of trouble, anyway.  For whatever reason, on the restarts toward the end, I just couldn’t get any forward traction.”

Fellows now holds two starts with JRM at Road America and an average finish of second at the facility.  This marks his first of three road course events with the team this season.

JR Motorsports PR

Speedway Digest Staff
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