Turning down a team like Dale Earnhardt Inc. would sound unthinkable to most drivers, but Ron Fellows stands out. At its peak, DEI housed one of the richest rosters in NASCAR. Dale Earnhardt Jr., John Andretti, and Martin Truex Jr, to name a few. Each carried the banner at different points. For a driver looking to break into the Cup Series full-time, it was the kind of opportunity career dreams were made of.

But when Canadian road course expert Ron Fellows received a chance to make that leap, he walked the other way. Fellows, not 66, joined DEI in his early 40s as a part-time specialist, delivering flashes of brilliance, most memorably his breathtaking 2004 charge at Watkins Glen, where he climbed from last to second and nearly beat Tony Stewart. That was enough to earn him a permanent place in NASCAR road racing lore. But now, the veteran is opening up about why he never made the jump.

Ron Fellows reveals his love for sports car racing

Speaking to Frontstretch, he said, ” I had a conversation with a couple organizations, DEI being one of them. But you know that the issue for me was getting those opportunities into my 40s, and having to give up sports car racing. I didn’t want to do that. It was in the early days, sort of the early 2000s, when there were a couple of opportunities came up to do Cup full-time.”

In the 2000s, Fellows was deeply immersed in sports car racing, not just as a part-time hobby but as a cornerstone of Corvette racing. He had joined the GM back team in 1998 and played a key role in their rise. Over the years, he celebrated wins in marquee endurance events like class victories at Le Mans, Daytona, and anywhere else the Corvette ran.

In 2001, he won the Rolex 24 at Daytona and later helped Corvette clinch multiple ALMS titles. But that didn’t stop him from taking on additional responsibility as a part-time driver for DEI. Although he never collected any Cup Series wins, he dominated the road courses, collecting six wins in total.

He also became the first non-American driver to notch up the most wins. Even when he stepped back from full-time competition with Corvette around 2008, he still made sporadic appearances. In 2010, he returned to the SCCA World Challenge and won two races in a Corvette GT. His commitment to the Corvette program was more than a job; it was a legacy.

He added, “So, the success that Cup racing has had. So, to be, to give that up, I wasn’t prepared to do it. I’m really really proud and privileged to have been part of a number of the firsts for Corvette. Rolex 24 win, the Le Mans class win. The Rolex one, the Rolex 24 Daytona was overall in 2001.”

Moreover, the timing was also significant. DEI’s future became shaky in the late 2000s. They struggled financially after losing major drivers and sponsors, and these struggles eventually culminated in a merger with Chip Ganassi Racing in 2009, with DEI’s assets folded into Ganassi’s operation. That instability likely made a full-time DEI feel less secure, another reason Fellows stayed at his course with Corvette. And with DEI’s legacy fading away in 2008, it ceased to exist.

And with no hard feelings involved, Ron Fellows has extended his praise to Shane Van Gisbergen, another non-American racer, who bagged another full-time ride with Trackhouse Racing after his stellar 2025 rookie season.

“I think I will say that his footwork and mine are identical,” he said.

However, Dale Earnhardt’s children, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Kelley Earnhardt Miller, eventually founded JR Motorsports, which runs in the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series to date, and now they just teased a potential full-time Cup ride after they announced a one-off 2026 Daytona run.

Kelley Earnhardt teases full-time Cup ride potential

JR Motorsports’ ambitions at Daytona are beginning to look like more than a one-time experiment. Co-owner Kelley Earnhardt Miller suggested that a full-time NASCAR Cup Series campaign isn’t off the table, though the organization isn’t ready to jump in without caution.

With the ongoing charter dispute involving NASCAR, 23XI Racing, and Front Row Motorsports continuing to shapeshift the business side of the sport, Miller is choosing to stay measured and observant rather than making any Bolt commitments.

Speaking to SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, she said, “I think everybody’s kind of in the same boat right now, just watching to see how things play out with the lawsuit and where things head, before doing anything crazy. So, always still looking at opportunities and what that looks like, and the Daytona 500, it’s kind of a race your way in.”

For JRM, entering the Daytona 500 serves a strategic purpose. The event is the most lucrative invisible platform in stock car racing, offering unmatched publicity for partners and sponsors. From that standpoint, taking part in the days is simply smart business.

Kelley added, “We’ll have to figure out if anything else will make sense and how this goes, and just continue to watch the landscape in the Cup Series and what the Charters are doing and all that to see where we end up.”

What happens beyond Daytona is still up in the air. For now, JRM’s long-term future and the cup series are still being shaped, but the organization continues to be a powerhouse in the second-tier series. Next season, the team will field full-time entries along with a part-time effort partnered with Trackhouse Racing’s drivers, ensuring JRM’s shops stay as busy and competitive as ever.