Fellows wins first wet race

A demonstration event at Suzuka in 1999 was won by Mike Skinner and in 2000, Cup cars practiced on rain tyres at Watkins Glen, but Saturday's race at Montreal was the first ever NASCAR points event held in wet conditions.

Fellows found himself in the lead when NASCAR displayed the caution flag on lap 46 due to intensifying rain and, given the worsening track conditions, officials decided to call the race on lap 48 of 74.

The local driver had been forced to pit under caution due to a radio malfunction while running in the top five, but taking four tyres and fuel he charged through the field to claim his fourth career Nationwide series win.

Had the race been restarted, he would've probably been forced to make another stop for fuel, although he believes conditions were so poor that he hadn't been able to burn much fuel as he could barely go full throttle.

"This is awesome, I'm not sure if I can actually believe it," said Fellows, who won at the wheel of the No.5 JR Motorsports Chevrolet. "The conditions deteriorated so badly that we weren't using that much fuel. You could barely use full throttle on a straight line.

"We could've gone a lot longer on that tank of fuel but NASCAR did the right thing. The track was just completely flooded this time and it worked out for us."

Polesitter Pruett led at the start followed by Max Papis until two laps later when Marcos Ambrose overtook the Italian at the hairpin to go in pursuit of the Ganassi driver while teams prepared for an eventual switch to wet tyres as the clouds gathered.

The rain threat materialised on lap seven and NASCAR brought the caution out for the first time in the afternoon. Two laps later, all teams pitted and were instructed by officials to change to wet Goodyears, put on windshield wipers, turn on a windshield defroster and a rear rain light.

The red flag was waved later as track service vehicles tried to clear standing water in order to to restart the race. The field ran a few more laps behind the pace car until the green flag finally waved again on lap 14.

Under the unusual sight of water spray coming out as the field stormed through the straightway, Ambrose had a better restart then Pruett and grabbed the lead under braking for turn one.

A lap later, as Ambrose drove away up front, Pruett ran wide on turn one while trying to fend off Papis for second place. He eventually cut turn two on the inside apron but had to concede the position in the end.

Behind them, fans had some good entertainment as local hero Jacques Villeneuve did his best to fend off the attacks from fellow-local Fellows in a close battle for fifth place behind Patrick Carpentier.

On lap 21 the caution came out again for a car parked before the hairpin. Ambrose had already built a five second cushion to Papis in second as they both paced the field on an increasingly dryer surface.

When the race resumed Ambrose pulled away again while the man on the move became Villeneuve. He first grabbed fourth from Carpentier and a few laps later he passed Pruett for third, which eventually turned into second place as Papis ran off the road at turn three on the same lap, bringing out the caution again.

The race resumed a couple of laps later with more rain changing track conditions again. Initially Ambrose pulled away until he went off at turn three, allowing Villeneuve to close in within a car length of the No.59 Ford of the Australian.

However he was able to pull away again until pitting for tyres and fuel to go the rest of the distance on lap 42. That allowed Villeneuve to lead for a lap before he also drove into the pits to change tyres and top-off with fuel.

As he came out in fourth place, the Australian was called again to the pits to serve a drive-through penalty for speeding. He duly complied with the official's call immediately and came out right behind Villeneuve.

"We had a great day going and I just sped down pit lane," said a disappointed Ambrose. "I actually took off too early. I couldn't see the end of pitlane.

"I'm just pretty disappointed that I let everybody down with that. I feel robbed about it. I feel like we just dominated today, controlled the race at the front, and it's a real shame for the whole team."

Fellows, who was on a different pit sequence, eventually grabbed the lead of the race after Ambrose pitted followed by Carpentier and as rain intensified even more, NASCAR decided to put out the caution once again for safety reasons, although there had not been any major incident until then.

The caution ignited a number of them, the first involving Villeneuve. The Canadian failed to stop his car while running behind Ron Hornaday Jr due to the poor visibility and ran into the back of him, sadly wrecking the front end of his car.

"When it started to rain hard again I had some oil on the window and just couldn't get rid of it," Villeneuve said.

"The only thing I could use to drive was the edge of the track and with some speed it was tearing the water a little bit but as soon as we got behind the pace car there, the water just stayed on the oil on the windshield and I couldn't see a thing."

While the Canadian tried to make his way back to the pits, Joey Logano also crashed into the back of backmarker Alex García while running an impressive fourth on his first road course race and his first in the rain.

As the rain didn't let off, NASCAR waved the red flag for a second time and minutes later decided to call the race.

Carpentier came home in second place to further please the local fans, although by the time the results were declared officials, plenty of them had already left the grandstands.

"It was a fun day," said Carpentier after matching his results from last year in the inaugural event at Montreal. "I wish we would've kept going a little longer because I felt we had a good shot at it.

"But it was great; we stayed on track, had a good car and ended up second. I wanted one position higher this year but I would take second place anytime."

Best among the series regulars was Carl Edwards, who was given a sweeper by his team in the pits to clean the windshield manually as he didn't have a wiper. He finished sixth and moved up to second in the standings, passing Brad Keselowski.

Clint Bowyer remains in the lead of the championship after finishing the race in ninth place.

Pos  Driver              Make       Laps
 1.  Ron Fellows         Chevrolet   48
 2.  Patrick Carpentier  Dodge       48
 3.  Marcos Ambrose      Ford        48
 4.  Joey Logano         Toyota      48
 5.  Ron Hornaday        Chevrolet   48
 6.  Jacques Villeneuve  Toyota      48
 7.  Boris Said          Ford        48
 8.  Carl Edwards        Ford        48
 9.  Jason Leffler       Toyota      48
10.  Greg Biffle         Ford        48
11.  Clint Bowyer        Chevrolet   48
12.  Steve Wallace       Chevrolet   48
13.  Scott Wimmer        Chevrolet   48
14.  Brad Keselowski     Chevrolet   48
15.  David Ragan         Ford        48
16.  Landon Cassill      Chevrolet   48
17.  Mike Wallace        Toyota      48
18.  David Reutimann     Toyota      48
19.  Mike Bliss          Chevrolet   48
20.  Max Papis           Chevrolet   48
21.  Brad Coleman        Ford        48
22.  Scott Pruett        Dodge       48
23.  Jason Keller        Chevrolet   48
24.  Kelly Bires         Ford        48
25.  Stanton Barrett     Chevrolet   48
26.  Alex Garcia         Chevrolet   48
27.  D.J. Kennington     Dodge       48
28.  Andrew Ranger       Dodge       46
29.  Scott Gaylord       Ford        46
30.  Brian Simo          Chevrolet   44
31.  Kenny Wallace       Chevrolet   42
32.  Wheeler Boys        Chevrolet   38
33.  Justin Marks        Toyota      20
34.  Trevor Boys         Chevrolet   14
35.  Burney Lamar        Ford         9
36.  Jeff Fuller         Chevrolet    8
37.  Morgan Shepherd     Chevrolet    8
38.  Brandon Whitt       Ford         8
39.  Stan Barrett        Chevrolet    8
40.  Don Thomson Jr      Chevrolet    2
41.  Scott Steckly       Chevrolet    3
42.  Dale Quarterley     Chevrolet    3
43.  Derrike Cope        Chevrolet    2