Racers Unchained with Paul Tracy
Oct 19, 2026 · 45 min · 11 segments
Ron Fellows joins Racers Unchained host Paul Tracy for a wide-ranging conversation about an incredible racing career that took him from struggling to make a living in open-wheel racing to becoming a…
Ron FellowsGuest
Paul TracyHost
So you went back to work, basically working as, uh, uh, working with steel and pipe and what, like what happened? Like you just ran out of money and, and, and, you
know, yeah, I got myself in, uh, a lot of debt, um, trying to, trying to make a go of it with, with 1600.
I was a machine operator, digging trench into the backhoe and filling it in with a bull loader.
I think it was about 82 when, when your dad bought that car from me, because I had it in 80, I bought it in 81.
Anyway, I had about four years of not racing, just, paying down debt and then along came the uh players gm series in 86 and they and i met uh i met richard spinard he had just started a racing school and i initially went to a school and then i got to uh work for him at the school which was uh which was a great help uh just to kind of be in the business yeah and uh but yeah the the you know when those when those uh between that that the three tobacco companies that got heavily involved in the eighties, um, eighties into the early nineties with, uh, players, general GM Rothman's Porsche, and then export a 2000 series.
And I, and I, I was full-time in the players GM series because it's what I could afford.
The cars are 20, 20,000 bucks with a six point roll cage, a racing seat, window net, go to the track.
And like you said, were you, were you, were you mechanicing and doing all the setup work on, on that car yourself? Or did you have a team? Like, I remember John Powell had a, had a, he had all the fast cars and everybody kind of was under his umbrella.
So you went back to work, basically working as, uh, uh, working with steel and pipe and what, like what happened? Like you just ran out of money and, and, and, you
know, yeah, I got myself in, uh, a lot of debt, um, trying to, trying to make a go of it with, with 1600.
I was a machine operator, digging trench into the backhoe and filling it in with a bull loader.
I think it was about 82 when, when your dad bought that car from me, because I had it in 80, I bought it in 81.
Anyway, I had about four years of not racing, just, paying down debt and then along came the uh players gm series in 86 and they and i met uh i met richard spinard he had just started a racing school and i initially went to a school and then i got to uh work for him at the school which was uh which was a great help uh just to kind of be in the business yeah and uh but yeah the the you know when those when those uh between that that the three tobacco companies that got heavily involved in the eighties, um, eighties into the early nineties with, uh, players, general GM Rothman's Porsche, and then export a 2000 series.
And I, and I, I was full-time in the players GM series because it's what I could afford.
The cars are 20, 20,000 bucks with a six point roll cage, a racing seat, window net, go to the track.
And like you said, were you, were you, were you mechanicing and doing all the setup work on, on that car yourself? Or did you have a team? Like, I remember John Powell had a, had a, he had all the fast cars and everybody kind of was under his umbrella.
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