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[Music] welcome to corvette today the podcast
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that talks about everything corvette with your host steve garrett mc and dj at one of the largest corvette weekends
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in the country corvette fun fest president of the corvette club of kansas city missouri and radio disc jockey at
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the number one radio station in kansas city for over 40 years here's steve garrett
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thanks for listening to corvette today the podcast that talks about everything corvette brought to you by mid-america
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motorworks pursue your passion at mamotoworks.com i'm your host steve garrett i appreciate
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you tuning in you can listen to corvette today on all podcast platforms you can also listen on your smart device just
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mid-enginecorvetforum.com the forum that focuses on the new mid-engine c8 corvette meet a lot of
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fellow corvette enthusiasts like yourself at mid-engine corvette forum.com also a shout out to
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canadiancorvetforum.com welcoming corvette owners from around the world my guest on corvette today is one of the
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founding members of corvette racing he did the initial testing and development on the c5r race car he's recognized as
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one of north america's most versatile racers winning in series that span the spectrum of motorsports from nascar all
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the way through to le mans it's my honor and pleasure to welcome to the show mr
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ron fellows ron thanks for being on corvette today hey thanks for having me steve my pleasure first of all let's
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talk about your earliers ron you started cart racing and then moved to formula 1600 and then formula 2000 racing talk
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about those early years and your beginnings in racing yeah for me i got the bug going to a formula one race at
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molesport which is now kitty entire motorsport park and it was 1969. that was my first car race i went to one with
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my brother rob and my uncle and his buddy it was at the age of 11 and i've
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said it multiple times if an 11 year old can have an epiphany that was it i wanted to be on the other side of the
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fence through paper routes and saving money i managed to start go-kart racing at the age of 15 which in these days is
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late i started racing go-karts locally in the toronto area and then i wanted to be a formula one driver so i got into
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formula forward and basically went broke doing that and got myself in an awful
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lot of debt around 1981-82 i had to stop i was working full-time in construction
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as a machine operator didn't do anything for probably four or five years and then
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along came general motors of canada with imperial tobacco they started a single make championship with the f-cars so
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basically they were showroom stock camaros and firebirds right and it had unheard of levels of prize money you had
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to drive the car to the truck it had a six point roll cage a racing seat there was a three thirty second tread depth
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goodyear that you used for the dry and you used the full tread for the wet and literally you drove them to the track
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and it paid six thousand dollars to win it was incredible the series gained a
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lot of popularity quickly just because of the size of the grids and there were almost 80 cars the first year so they
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were qualifying races the series was had two of the races were live tv i managed
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to win one of the two that were live on tv and that's where things began to change getting sponsorship it was a
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series that super intense competition affordable marketable all the things
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that i didn't have a great deal of experience with marketing racecraft and finesse you learned all of that doing 50
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mile races with 40 plus cars in the race with everybody basically in the same equipment so as the marketability of the
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series enabled my brother and i to eventually get our own team together one of the sponsors i had was a canadian
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mutual fund company the president whom i met after he saw me win my first race in
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86 which was at one of the indycar races he was a big enthusiast he was so thrilled to see me win this last lap
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last quarter pass that's how the relationship started winning a championship in the late 80s and winning
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a number of the big events at the support race for the grand prix in the 80s and then the toronto downtown indy
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winning at those places he rewarded me by helping me get into the trans am series the dream of wanting to be a
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professional racing driver was on the back burner for a good number of years this series was the one that allowed me
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to develop my skill i became a springboard into the us that's right now that was an 89 that was the players gm
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challenge series and that's when you won the drivers championship in 1989 yes sir and then
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from there you went on to fcca and nascar in trans am racing you won 19
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times in 95 starts you also participated in the nascar craftsman truck series the
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nascar nationwide series and the nascar cup series talk about all your time racing there in nascar yeah the
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transient series was a support race for the cup race in watkins glen and i just thought wow those looked like a lot of
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fun it wasn't until i began to race for chevrolet in 95 that the team owner of
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the chevy factory transplant team was buzz mccall and buzz got into nascar he initially had a team in the xfinity
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series and then he expanded to the cup series herb official who was head of gm racing i had a three-year contract with
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chevy at 95 96 97 at the end of 96 they decided to pull out of the trans am
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series and i'm thinking no more factory deal now what herb was keen to keep me under contract and let's see where
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things would go and encourage me to try other things that's where in 97 i did
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some truck races with billy hass aer manufacturing long time sponsor again they helped support our efforts in a few
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of the craftsman trucks series races but i managed to win one in 97 and i also ran a ferrari 333 sp which was in the
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prototype classes sports cars and i did that couple times as well managed to win a race with rob morgan my co-driver at
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the home track and things began to progress again and it was in the fall of
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97 when my contract was up i did some truck races managed to win one in the
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world sports car championship met with her official and joe negri who was running gm racing and i met with them in
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september of 97 and they talked about taking a corvette to le mans
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there you go would i like to be part of that for a nanosecond i'm in yeah
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that's all it took the interesting part was the gt class was kind of all over the board and i was
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sort of thinking what category were you going to run this car it all worked itself out and herb talked about this
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guy by the name of don penos who was going to start an american le mans series had great vision for the future
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of sports car racing we tested for an entire year in 98 but we debuted at the rolex 24 daytona in 1999 and the rest is
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history there you go i tell you what ron let's take a quick break and in the next segment we're going to talk about your
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motorworks [Music] and now back to corvette today with your
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host and my husband steve garrett [Music] hey thanks for listening to corvette
10:10
today the podcast that talks about everything corvette brought to you by mid-america motorworks pursue your
10:17
passion at mamotorworks.com i'm your host steve garrett with me is fame corvette racing
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legend ron fellows in the second segment we're going to talk about ron's years with corvette racing ron in the late 90s
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you began your career with corvette racing primarily as a development driver with the c5r talk about the development
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of the c5r and then your transition into corvette racing in 1999. yeah the first
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test that i did was in november of 97 and it was at sebring and that became an
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annual thing by the way corporate racing testing at seabee in november but anyway it was myself and then chris knifel
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chris had some history with chevy in the trans m series as well so chris and i were the first two drivers the early
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days of corvette racing was a pickup truck a trailer about four guys one
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laptop and a driver wow ken brown who was an engineer with
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corvette on the production side he was one of the engineers initially gary pratt was there right from the start
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obviously it was a pratt miller project and john rice on the engine side of it it was fun to begin that development
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process and we brought on steve cole who i knew from more of a race engineer he came on board we tested the entire 98
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season because some of the rules were changing for gts at the time you know that first year of the american le mans
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series we tested typically on a monday tuesday or a monday tuesday wednesday following one of the races and it was
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really useful data you've got lap times you've got race run comparisons
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and goodrew was our entire partner at the time it was a great opportunity to work on their tire development because
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of the compatibility issues this series then was multiple tire manufacturers were competing in the series wow so
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michelin was fairly dominant but there were others competing as well along with goodyear dunlop yokohama you name it the
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general general was there by the time we got to the end of the 98 season i had branched out to do a little bit of
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nascar as well and what was then the bush series at watkins glen but the
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focus was on the testing and the preparation was rolex 24 daytona 99.
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there you go now you had corvette racing's first alms victory in september
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of 2000 at the texas motor speedway with andy pilgrim as a matter of fact andy was on corvette today podcast number 80.
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talk about that it had to be so thrilling to win corvette racing's first victory yeah in 99 and 2000 we weren't
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doing all of the races we were doing majority texas in 2000 was not on the
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schedule we'd come very close to winning at my home track i talked to both herb
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and joe we need to go to texas it's a brand new track for everybody we'll go there a level playing field it wasn't in
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the budget so what i helped do was one of my long time sponsors aer manufacturing they're based in addison
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texas and this was a great opportunity for them to make a bit of splash in the dallas area with corbett racing they
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helped make it happen we managed to get our first win it was one a very tough race but in the end it worked out
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because we were at a track that nobody had any data nobody had any information right it was a role in today's terms of
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the road course oval just magic to get the first win and absolutely nearly unbearable heat oh my gosh i'm sure as
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we developed as a team we were continually improving we got our first win that was can we get more can we win
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the big ones because the focus from the start was going to le mans and getting a class win there right 2001 was really
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the breakout year for quarterback racing we got the rolex 24 overall in 2001 got
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the first class win at le mans that year and that was a huge thrill i was going to say you've won at 24 hours of daytona
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the 12 hours of sebring 24 hours of le mans i mean almost virtually everything in north america and then in 2002 you
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won the alms gts drivers championship and you shared that title once again
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with johnny o'connell in 2003 2004. that had to be exciting as well yeah it was a
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bit bittersweet johnny came on his first race with us was 2001 to win at daytona
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that was a great event because we had both dale earnhardt senior and junior in the car with andy and kelly wow in our
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car it was johnny chris knifel frank freon and myself frank was usually in the four car with andy and kelly for the
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longer races but this is how we use four drivers at daytona so that's how we broke it out and awesome opportunity for
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all of us to work together but the rules were such that they only awarded one driver yeah it was crazy a lot of the
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drivers we were lobbying hey we're not alone in this we have teammates it should be the two full-time drivers
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should get equal points and they were rewarding the difference between johnny and i in 2002 that was points based on
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fastest rates lapse that made the difference i had more facets race laps and it was crazy we should have just
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shared it and then after 2002 they changed the rules wow it really was the two full-time drivers shared equally and
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that's the way it should be it has been ever since yeah absolutely right also besides your duties with corvette racing
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you competed obviously in nascar you won back-to-back fcca speed world
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championships while driving the cts-v for cadillac how did you balance all those ron you know what i was quite used
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to jumping in multiple cars it goes back to the experience i had racing in canada
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because it was also i raced at 944 turbo porsche it was not unusual to be in a race
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weekend where i was racing a short stock camaro and that 944 turbo porsche that
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was on slicks when i was doing trans am there was a couple of years there where i did all three on the same weekend so
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getting an opportunity to be a third driver with cadillac world challenge team and just do a few and try to help
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where i could when cadillac team was at alms events for me was super fun it was an opportunity to get into a sprint race
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they were 50-minute races and i was there strictly to help with the points i wasn't chasing a championship if i had
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an opportunity to win that's what i was there for we managed to get a few wins for cadillac to help with manufacturer
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points and oh 506.07 something like that or 0.456 doing two or three here and
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there yeah it was a lot of fun let me take you back to 2006. long beach california you ran a spectacular race
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just phenomenal you passed on the last lap talk about that race ron
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oh boy yeah that was a lot of fun and long beach is such a great street circuit it is just so much fun to drive
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doesn't matter what you're in you know the cadillacs were strong although with the balance of performance adjustments
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we were not fast in a straight line and that was all b.o.p and long beach has one very long front straightaway i was
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racing against a dodge viper and the viper was just so much faster on the front straightaway but i was quicker
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cornering stopping so it was just a matter of timing it the good news is that when you come around the hairpin
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last corner at long beach the start finish line is only about a third of the way up the straight line so it was just
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a matter of timing the pass and i got a good run and he blocked the inside i went around the side of him and got
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around him and there was like two corners from there to the hairpin we were able to hang on for the short drag
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race to the checkered flag yeah it was an exciting one that was an awesome race now in 2008 you became ambassador for
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corvette and a technical advisor for gm racing talk about what that entails
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right it was mostly ambassador my last year with corvette racing was 2008 there
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are a number of things happened one there was talk about a high performance driving school with the sixth generation
18:05
zr1 that was out there being the first old driver what do you do with somebody who's got
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10 years with corvette racing i was 51 52 at the time i'd had a really good run
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privileged and honored to be part of the corvette team with corbett racing and pat miller they offered up this
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ambassador opportunity it was a great way to stay involved and be helpful with some of the newer drivers that were
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coming into corporate racing and also be able to spend more time when you're not driving as corporate racing became more
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and more popular corvette owners were in the hundreds coming to the track it was an opportunity for one of the drivers to
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spend a lot more time with corvette owners of the track it was a great opportunity for me to step into that
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role and an honor and i continued to this day with that role that's fantastic it's a great way to stay connected to
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corvette racing after you get out of the car after you're done behind the wheel ron we would be remiss if we didn't talk
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about lamar for a minute you had a stint at le mans where you gained like 30 seconds on the leading aston martin car
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talk about le mans and some of your best memories there where did you get that information from i do my research my
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friend well yeah the one that you're referring to that le mans was 2007 and it was oh
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gosh i think i got in the car and it was three and a quarter maybe three and a half hours to go i get into the car you
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know like 11 40 and then shortly after i got in it monsoon it just rained and rain
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typically at le mans rain or shine they're not bringing out the safety car and i said a really good reason for it
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right that's sort of the european way i think we were p3 at the time pastor martins were 1-2 but we were down two
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laps i'd always done pretty well in the wet for the next couple of hours uh got ourselves back on the lead lap just by
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staying on the track and going fast in the wet the unfortunate part was that when we got back on the lead lap they
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did bring out a safety car essentially we tunneled around behind the safety car for 45 minutes or so and then they went
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green with i don't know five minutes to go there wasn't enough time left when i was making up time on them for the
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longest time you know i was in this super focused mode and i had no idea where i was i'm just trying to survive
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and i'm passing cars and prototypes i asked our engineer how are things going like where are we at it was joe kieffer
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and joe just came on the radio and he said hey just keep doing what you're doing you're running i forget what he
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said you know 30 40 seconds a lot quicker than the aftermarket you will take the lead with 20 odd minutes to go
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it was one of those really cool moments where you're just finding ways to stay on the track make speed unfortunately it
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was the safety car that ended our day yeah well ron let's take our final break and in segment number three we're going
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to talk about what you're doing today here on corvette today
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[Music] this is the corvette today podcast with
23:37
steve garrett hey thanks once again for listening to corvette today the podcast that talks
23:43
about everything corvette brought to you by mid-america motorworks pursue your passion at mamotoworks.com
23:50
i'm your host steve garrett with me is fame race card legend from corvette racing ron fellows in this third and
23:56
final segment we're going to talk about ron's time after corvette racing around in 2008 i know you left corvette racing
24:02
like you said at the end of the season but you set up your own school in pahrump nevada talk about spring
24:08
mountain yeah chevrolet was looking for an opportunity when the sixth generation zr1 came out there's a number of the
24:15
senior executives including mr bob bletz that was absolutely adamant that we're
24:20
going to have a car with over 600 horsepower let's figure out how to get driver training as part of the ownership
24:25
package tom wallace who's a chief engineer back then very supportive i had coincidentally met the ownership the
24:32
managing partner john morris at spring mountain met him in february of 2008
24:38
they sort of developed him there and then michelin was keen to be part of it as well we started in october of 2008
24:45
fairly humble beginnings we probably had half a dozen instructors got rick alone
24:50
to become a chief instructor a couple of months in we were basically in support of the ownership program that was part
24:57
of the purchase experience for c6 tier one as that progressed we were gaining
25:02
momentum as a high performance driving school and an experience working with the corvette team and chevy marketing it
25:09
was agreed that the right thing to do here going forward was extend the high performance driving school program to
25:16
every owner and so starting with the seventh generation and now the eighth generation corvette every first owner
25:22
gets a two-day school at spring mountain it's been great to be part of it it's grown to where you know we were probably
25:28
eight or nine hundred in the first few years and now it's north of four or five
25:33
thousand owners a year come to the school certainly the c8 in 2022 will probably see the best numbers yet based
25:40
on its popularity and it's been great for me to be part of it rick and the team that he's put together there you
25:46
know we're up to around 30 instructors now we're running multiple programs a day as the car has evolved so it has our
25:52
curriculum it's been a lot of fun to be able to provide an opportunity for corvette owners and enthusiasts to be
25:58
able to come to the school and have a much better understanding of the
26:03
capability of the latest generation corvette c7 ca and also leave a solid
26:09
knowledge base of not only the cars capabilities but the road and it can be intimidating these cars are incredibly
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sophisticated highly capable and they're also great daily drivers that two day
26:21
experience is invaluable for owners to really get an opportunity to leave with
26:26
a much better understanding and appreciation for what their corvette is capable of spring mountain is just a
26:32
phenomenal experience i always call it top gun for corvette because they teach you to drive that car to the edge of the
26:39
envelope and rick malone and his staff do an outstanding job todd crutcher and his staff are just fantastic and it is a
26:46
premier facility in north america now you also own part of the group that owns
26:51
most sports which is now called canadian tire motorsports park that's kind of like spring mountain in canada isn't it
26:58
well it's a little bit different spring mountain is a motorsports country club it doesn't host any spectator events
27:05
isn't set up that way from an infrastructure standpoint membership in the facility has grown and they've added
27:11
track it was initially 2.2 then 2.4 isn't it a mile and a half added then another two
27:17
miles now they're up to the northeast the property is another three miles so the facility has about nine and a half
27:23
miles of racetrack seeing how it has grown and developed over the years has been awesome to be part of that and then
27:29
a couple of guys carlo fidani and help out we were actually at my school with carlo's two sons in the fall of 2010
27:36
carlo said let's buy a racetrack okay we're all in toronto areas what
27:42
about motorsport would it be for sale that's really how it started i said i don't think it is but i know who to call
27:48
it don pinos who was the founder of the american lama series he had purchased the track in 98. he also owned rhode
27:55
atlanta sebring as well as the series he was a big history buff and there was a
28:00
tremendous amount of history with den mosport it opened in 1961 and has hosted
28:05
everything from floriano under knm trans am all the sports car open wheel you
28:11
name it i approached don and scott atherton who is the president of the america le mans series and don's
28:17
right-hand person there with his racing empire i just said hey any chance you
28:22
guys might be interested in selling most porn that's really how it started we sat down and don liked the idea of it going
28:28
back into canadian hands and he and carlo got along really well we took possession june 1st 2011. it's a track
28:36
that annually would have four or five big events a year as well as having car club days manufacturer test days track
28:43
rental is really the bread and butter of the business you know it had all this history but a lot of the infrastructure
28:50
was still a couple of decades behind and so that was one of the first things that we did was looked at investing and carlo
28:56
was a great visionary for a lot of this he could see things that i just took for granted in terms of what the
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infrastructure presented and certainly putting in tunnels we spent a lot of time grooming the outside of the
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racetrack it has incredible sight lines for spectators and then we put a new tower and got corporate suites and then
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built a smaller track on the west side of the property a new karting facility that opened in 2015 and then along the
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way a lot of the corporate partnerships that i've had over the years one of them being canadian tire corporation stepped
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up to be a partner beginning in 2012 with the name and rest of the facility and gm canada is a big supporter
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michelin they believed in what we were trying to do taking this iconic facility and bringing it into the 21st century my
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wife's part of the partnership group our oldest son works in the business as well that's fantastic your list of
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accomplishments reads like a who's who you're a four-time alms most popular driver which was voted on by the fans
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four times also a three-time alms champion two class wins at le mans 19
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fcca trans am wins and five nascar wins that is absolutely incredible any of
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them that stand out the most to you ron yeah there's a few that are defining
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moments in a number of ways in terms of providing opportunities winning the rolex 24 at daytona in 2001 and overall
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was huge we had dale earnhardt senior and junior in the second corvette getting to know them led to me getting
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an opportunity to drive for dale seniors team and also dale jr's team that was certainly a pivotal moment for not only
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corporate racing but also for my career to do other things nascar opportunities
30:40
with dale senior and then dale jr for quarter racing the first firsts were big we talked about the first win in 2000 at
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texas the focus was to win at le mans and that was to take a corvette and win
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a le mans getting that to happen the same year as a rolex 24 was amazing the
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gm execs that were behind the project and certainly herb official in particular was part of the visionary
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behind that i will never forget how happy herb joe doug fee and gary frat
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jim miller tom michael all the folks from fred know but certainly those two with corvette were the two biggest ron
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if somebody wanted to get in touch with you let's talk real quickly about your email and social media probably the
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simplest way is either go through the rentals performance driving school of spring mountain or you can do that
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through canadian tire motorsport park both websites you'll be able to find some contact info and i will get the
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message sounds good ron thank you so much for taking time to be on corvette today the stories were absolutely
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fantastic thank you so much for everything my pleasure thank you steve thanks for listening to corvette today
31:44
and please be sure to tell your family friends and other corvette enthusiasts about the corvette today podcast and
31:49
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also aerolary wheels get 100 off your purchase with the new promo code ct111
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at listening to arrowlauri.com today with
32:14
steve garrett if you'd like to contact steve with any thoughts on the podcast or ideas for guests on corvette today
32:21
you can email him at stevegarrattdj gmail.com that's steve stevegarrettdj gmail.com
32:30
garrett has two r's and two t's or connect with steve on social media on facebook twitter or instagram using at
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steve garrett dj thanks again for listening to corvette today [Music]