Coming off his sixth career NASCAR win last weekend at Montreal, veteran road course specialist Ron Fellows will pilot the Dale Earnhardt Inc. #01 Chevy in the Centurion Boats at the Glen at Watkins Glen International on Aug. 10. Leading rookie-of-the-year candidate Regan Smith will drive the #81 DEI entry in the race and be back in the #01 car the following week at Michigan. Fellows drove the #01 car in a strong performance at Sonoma earlier this year. The veteran driver was running top-five when he was caught up in a late-race accident. Prior to that, he was no stranger to Dale Earnhardt Inc., having competed in road course races for DEI in 2003-04. He finished seventh in 2003 at Infineon and second at Watkins Glen in 2004 in the DEI #01 Chevy. This will be Fellows’ 47th NASCAR start. The road course ace has compiled six wins, 13 top-fives, 17 top-10s and five poles in 46 combined starts in NASCAR’s top three series. This will be Fellows’ 11th Sprint Cup start at Watkins Glen International, where he has finished top five on three previous occasions, including second there in the DEI #1 car in 2004. In addition, Fellows has started eight Nationwide races at The Glen, having led 189 laps, with three wins, four top-five and five top-10 finishes.(DEI PR)(8-5-2008) UPDATE: hearing that DEI has decided not to field a 5th team for Regan Smith at Watkins Glen and the #81 will be or has been withdrawn.(8-6-2008) UPDATE2: DEI has withdrawn the entry of its #81 Sprint Cup car for Regan Smith for Watkins Glen this weekend after NASCAR informed the team that it couldn’t put Smith in that car because of the four-team limit. Teams are permitted to enter a fifth car for a maximum of seven races for a rookie to get the driver familiar with Sprint Cup competition. Smith, an upstate New York native, has 20 starts this year, and NASCAR determined he did not fit the criteria for the fifth-car exception, NASCAR spokesman Kerry Tharp said Wednesday. DEI would have been allowed to put Aric Almirola in that car because Almirola has five starts this year, Tharp said. Almirola, who will take over driving the #8 car next season, already was entered in the #8 car for The Glen in place of veteran Mark Martin, who is driving the majority of the Cup races this year while Almirola fills in the rest. “We brought it to their attention that [Smith] would not be permitted to run in the fifth car,” Tharp said. “We told them they could move Aric Almirola into that fifth entry. They went back to discuss it and decided not to enter the fifth car.”(SceneDaily)(8-7-2008)
