Road-course specialists Max Papis, Jacques Villeneuve and Ron Fellows all had memorable races at Road America last year, which ended with three attempts at a green-white-checker finish. On the first try, Villeneuve tried going inside on Turn 1 but ran out of track and caused Papis and a fellow driver to wreck.
Fellows and eventual race winner Reed Sorenson were involved in some drama on the third and final attempt as well. Aric Almirola caused the seventh and final caution when he ran out of gas in Turn 6 and it was eventually ruled by NASCAR that Fellows passed Sorenson after the caution was issued, giving Sorenson the win.
Most of the questions during the press conference revolved around what could happen at Turn 1 if the race went like last year with an overtime finish. Fellows wasn’t shy about what he predicted.
“There is going to be chaos if it goes green-white-checker,” Fellows said.
Turn 1 is nearly a 90-degree right-hander and a great opportunity for a driver to move up a couple of spots. As seen last year, however, it can also turn into a big mess if a driver is over-aggressive.
“We had, ultimately, quite a good weekend even though the end of the race was a little bit too exciting,” Villeneuve said. “It’s a great team and everybody is coming here to get a good result. The plan is to keep my nose clean for the race.”
With a second-place finish last year, Fellows knows what he needs to do in order to take the checkered flag this time around.
“We ran ourselves out of time,” Fellows said of last year’s effort. “We got killed on the restarts and have to have something saved for the end.”
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