All in the Genes

All in the GENES

Sam Fellows following in Dad’s footsteps

Sam, you and I have known each other for many years, even though we were at the racetrack you were not behind the wheel, you were in the Media Room responsible for some of the great videos that are used to promote Canadian Tire Motorsport Park.

Now you are trying to embark on a racing career a little later than most of your contemporaries, how old are you now and where do you currently work? I am 24 years old and my official title is Brand Ambassador for CTMP. I handle the social media,

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advise on communications and marketing, and help run the Ron Fellows Driving Experience At what age did you realize your Dad was special when it came to driving. It’s a good question because my dad is such a humble guy and he brought me and my siblings up the same way. I knew he was an exceptional driver because he was winning races both in ALMS and

NASCAR when we were younger. I think as I got older and more interested in driving that I realized what a wealth of knowledge and experience he had, I’m always asking him questions about techniques and different experiences he’s had. But I think at Le Mans in 2007 it really struck me that he had a special talent. He was in the car with only a few hours to go trying to chase down the Aston Martin leading in GT1 - it was raining like crazy and at one point he was catching the Aston at something stupid like 30 seconds a lap and was the fastest car

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in the entire field - prototypes and all. I remember looking up at the live timing when he came down the front straight and seeing the lap time at minus 30 to the Aston’s time - all the Corvette crew and even the other drivers in the garage started going nuts. I think seeing that really put it in perspective that he was doing something few others could. Unfortunately, the ACO brought out the safety car due to dangerous conditions and dad couldn’t advance any further up the road but by the crew’s math he would have caught the lead Aston with under an hour left in the race - I still think it could have been one of the all-time greatest finishes at Le Mans. Unlike many other second-generation racers, you never came thru the normal karting route. Why not? I did a very little amount of karting when I was younger. Most of it was done on private track days just getting some experience. I think my father was a little worried about just sending me out there because of my last name - he didn’t want to put any extra pressure on me. I did a season of arrive and drive racing at Goodwood - I finished 3rd a couple times but I couldn’t beat the top guys. I’ve always been a taller kid and I think my extra weight didn’t help much in karts. I had fun and I learned some of the fundamentals, but I never competed at a very high level. I think one of the major factors was that my dad was still racing at that point and our priority was to follow him around the race circuit. We were constantly on the road throughout the summer and my dad liked having us around - for him it was a distraction if we weren’t there. When did you get interested in getting behind the wheel and racing? Basically, as far back as I remember. I had a very cool upbringing, I basically spent every single weekend of every summer until I was about eighteen at a race track. I was always around racecars and race-car drivers and as a kid I remember just wanting so bad to be like my dad and all these other guys I held in such high regard. All the other

Corvette Racing drivers were like uncles to me - especially Johnny O and Max Papis. For most of the 2000’s it was them and my Dad in the #3 car and Oliver Gavin, Olivier Beretta, and Jan Magnussen in the #4 car - they were all so nice to me. I looked up to all of them. I think my dad just saw that I had a serious passion for racing and so he put me in a 4-stroke kart to see what I could do and its kind of spiraled from there. When I was fifteen I learned how to drive standard on a C6 Corvette at Spring Mountain in Nevada and I spent a week there on track learning how to drive a sports car. I’ve been there a few times a summer ever since just practicing and learning as much as I can. Your brother Patrick is a very good hockey player, has he got any racing aspirations? Patrick is an incredible athlete and we’re always competing against each-other whether it’s just playing games or at the gym or otherwise - when we were kids we raced the arrive and drive at

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Goodwood together, Patrick was pretty quick himself but at that time he was already playing rep hockey and one day I think he said to my dad, “Dad I love racing but I think I love hockey more, is that okay?” Obviously, Dad was fine with it, he’s a huge hockey fan himself. But Patrick and I watch F1 together every weekend we’re big Danny Ric fans, I’d love to get him on track at CTMP sometime soon. Your ‘Pro’ debut in the Canadian Touring Car Championship was very successful with the Pfaff Motorsport BMW M235iR, how did that come about? I wasn’t sure how competitive we would be just jumping into the class like that for a one-off, but I managed to have fun and find some success which was more than I could ask for. I ran a slightly modified mostly stock 1995 Camaro for the past two years in CASC GT4 enduro just kind of cutting my teeth as it were. At the BEMC weekend last September Scott Goodyear and his son Michael entered the three-hour in a PFAFF BMW 235iR. I’m not sure if the PFAFF guys even knew I was racing at that time, but I managed to clinch the GT4 championship that weekend. A couple weeks later we got a call from Steve Bortolotti at PFAFF offering me a test in the M235iR that Scott and Michael drove, and I did pretty well. Over the winter the opportunity arose for me to race the BMW. My Dad, as a Chevrolet factory driver, gave me his blessing that he would not disown me for driving a BMW, and I was tad worried about that to be honest. I have driven Chevy’s my whole life - but I received a great opportunity from PFAFF and it would have been a shame to not take it - so I put my Camaro hat on the shelf…for now. The only hang-up was we needed to find a team to run the car because PFAFF is already busy enough with their Pirelli World Challenge program they simply wouldn’t be able to do it. Richard Boake is a good friend of mine and he runs his monster Subaru in Time Attack with Can-Jam Motorsports. I knew the Can-Jam guys were reliable and very well experienced and so they agreed to run the car for me at Victoria Day

SpeedFest in CTCC and they did a fantastic job. They’re truly great guys - they stayed up until four in the morning one night building me a rear wing - we found out on test day that we were way down on horsepower for the class unfortunately, so we figured we would focus on the corners by adding as much downforce as possible. On Sunday in the dry I managed to finish second but I’m glad that it rained on Saturday because that was the only way I was going to win. I’m so grateful to PFAFF for trusting me to race their car and I’m very proud to have brought them and Can-Jam a win. Once upon a time before my old man had a contract with Chevy he raced a couple Rothman’s Porsche Cup events with a car sponsored by PFAFF - it’s very cool to have done the same.

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Right after the CTCC win you ran in the CSCS Time Attack and finished 2nd in the Unlimited Class. How different was running against the clock as opposed to other racers? It was different for sure. I really try to race hard, I try and study the Fernando Alonso book of overtaking and I have a pretty good coach as well who has taught me how to make a good clean pass. I knew the 235iR might be a little underpowered for that class but I also I knew it would be a lot of fun and if I drove well enough I might even be able to win. Unfortunately, I was about 7 tenths off the win at the end of the time attack - I’m still trying not to lose sleep over that one… It was a bit of a lastminute decision to run CSCS, but I really wanted to bring the car out and get some exposure in front

I approached Steve Bortolotti the manager at Pfaff Motorsports and asked him for his view of this young charger. “Sam was beyond impressive during his CTCC debut this past May. His calm, calculated, and level-headed approach resulted in one of the best wet weather drives I’ve seen in recent memory.” Some context from our side. It’s nice to support a 2nd generation Pfaff racer. Ron Fellows had a brief stint in the 944 Turbo Cup back in 1990 in a Pfaff car, and he and Chris Pfaff have remained close ever since. “It’s an honour to work with Sam, and support a second-generation Pfaff driver, as well as the son of a Canadian racing legend. You can tell he & Ron share the same passion for racing, and the dynamic between them as teacher / student couldn’t be better. The first time I let Sam drive our BMW, it was quite evident that the apple didn’t fall far from the tree.”

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of those fans which is a little different crowd than the fans on a typical sports car weekend. I was at a CSCS event last summer and it blew me away in terms of the crowd and their level of passion for the events. Blasting down the front straight with all those people standing on the wall is such a cool feeling. Despite the horsepower differential I was hustling the BMW as hard as I could, and I was sliding out of basically every corner. It’s interesting because you just go like hell for three laps and try to lay it all out there. You don’t have to worry about your tires falling off or your fuel mileage or having to deal with other drivers around you. You have to focus on yourself and really minimize mistakes because you have such a short window to get the job done. What is in your future racing wise? At this point I’m taking whatever comes my way. My goal and dream is to one day race professional sports cars like my old man and go to Daytona and Le Mans. I have a long way to go before I get there. My mindset is to basically take every opportunity I get and make something out of it. I’m hoping to get at least one more race weekend in the BMW this summer, but nothing is set in stone. I’d love to race CTCC at Trois Rivières and if I can the Silverado 250

weekend at CTMP. I’d love to do another time attack event in the future as well. There’s some other plans a little more confidential on the horizon as well but right now I’m focusing on my training both on and off the track. Being a taller guy at 6 foot 4 every pound I can shed in the gym I see as another tenth or so off my lap-time, so I do my best to stay in the gym and out of the fridge. As well, I work as an instructor at the Ron Fellows Driving Experience so I’m always on track at CTMP trying to stay sharp - I’ve already been out to Spring Mountain twice this year and I’m hoping to go back again to train some more. But for now, the only racing that I know for sure I’ll be doing is on Gran Turismo every night after 8pm!

Photos Above: Sam with his mother Linda at the RaceFest show at Yonge-Dundas Square prior to the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship event at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park. The event gave fans an early opportunity to meet the drivers and see the cars before they headed off to Canada’s biggest sports car race, the Mobil 1 SportsCar Grand Prix. Below: Pit Stop demonstrations by the factory Corvette Racing GTLM team included Ron Fellows at the wheel of a Corvette C7R

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Considering the title of this article it only seemed right that I talk to Ron Fellows himself since it was his genes that spawned young Sam and no doubt inspired him to become a racer. During the conversation he talked about his racing career and how it differs from the path Sam is currently taking. “One thing currently lacking is quality Canadian based series that offer a legitimate path for a kart racer wanting to make it to the bigger leagues. Having said that I have to say there is a path through the Canadian Touring Car Championship or NASCAR Canada but it is not a cheap option. Back in my day we had the Player’s LTD/GM Motorsport series from 1986 through to 1992, the Honda Michelin series and the Rothman’s Porsche Turbo Cup, they were all quality championship and designed to fit various pockets. And look at the racers that came out of those series, Richard Spenard, Kenny Wilden, Ross Bentley, Frank Allers, David Empringham and the Lapcevich brothers, a virtual who’s, who of Canadian motorsport.” He went on, “Back then racing just seem to be easier, you had to be quick behind wheel and that tended to be it. These days you have to be able to drive, to market yourself, to promote yourself, your team and sponsors through press releases, shake hands and talk to the fans even when you’ve just completed a multi hour stint behind the wheel. I have to say both Linda and I are really proud of Sam and how he put together the deal to run the Pfaff M235iR in the Canadian Touring Car Championship at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park in May. He did that all on his own.” “When I embarked on my own career Linda and I talked about how we would handle me being away so much especially with a young family. We we decided we would do it as a family as much as we could and we took the three kids with us as often as possible and that was great for them, seeing foreign countries, meeting all sorts of people and seeing some great racing. I guess some of the last thing rubbed off on Sam.”

As Used By

Gridlife Unlimited Champion CSCS UF Champion - - - James Houghton - - -

Many time CSCS SSF Champion- - - Chris Boersma - - -

Ultimate Track Challenge Production AWD Winner - - - John Freund - - -

Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge ST Manufacturers Champion, - - - LAP Motorsport - - -

Global Time Attack Street FWD Winner - - - Chris Hofmann - - -

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