In recent years, road course racing has become much more prominent in the NASCAR racing schedule. Prior to the 2021 NASCAR season (not including the anomaly that was 2020), road course races were few and far between. From the inaugural Charlotte Roval race through 2020, the typical number of road course races on the NASCAR schedule was 3. Prior to that, and ever since the commencement of the modern era, 2 road courses were typical year-to-year. This meant that they were less influential on the overall season standings. Many NASCAR greats who struggled on road courses saw them as races just to simply limp through.
And though there were a number of NASCAR regulars who excelled at this type of racing, there were also many drivers outside the mainstays of the sport who saw these scarce races as opportunities to have some good finishes in the top tier of stock car racing in America. These drivers were dubbed “the road course ringers”–they showed up for the road course events and the road course events alone. So, this week, we thought we’d take a look at this tradition throughout NASCAR’s illustrious history. Here is the rise, fall, and rise again of road course ringers in NASCAR.
Though a driver named Dan Gurney is widely credited as the greatest road course ringer in NASCAR history (after winning 5 sportsman races before the modern era), the first true road course ringer staple in NASCAR was Mark Donohue. Mark made starts only in the 1972 and 1973 seasons. During those years, NASCAR raced at only one road course, and it was featured on the Cup schedule twice a year, one of them being the season-opening race prior to the Daytona 500. This road course was Riverside International Speedway, which was, at the time, located in Riverside, California.
Donohue was a true racer, a proving driver who could win in almost anything he stepped in. He raced in multiple Indy 500s as well as 24 Hours of Le Mas events. For the 1972 and ’73 seasons, Donohue made 6 NASCAR starts, four of them coming in 1972. He made his debut at Riverside that year, finishing a disappointing 39th place. He followed that up with a 35th-place run in the Daytona 500 and 44th and 15th at Ontario Speedway and Atlanta, respectively. He etched his name in the NASCAR history books in the season-opening race in 1973 at Riverside. He won the race, driving for the first iteration of Team Penske. His final NASCAR race came at Atlanta where he finished in 30th.
Following his brief stint in NASCAR, Donohue joined the F1 circuit. He tragically passed away following an accident in the 1975 Austrian Grand Prix. He was only 38 years old.
Perhaps one of the more popular members on this list is Ron Fellows. The Canadian-born driver was a constant ringer in NASCAR’s top-2 divisions from the mid-1990s until the early 2010s. He made his first start in 1995 for Canaska Racing at Watkins Glen, where he finished 35th. Between 1995 and 2013, Fellows made 25 Cup starts. Though he never won at NASCAR’s highest level, he was a consistent competitor, particularly in the mid-2000s. In the NASCAR Cup Series, he had the best finish of 2nd, which he achieved twice in 1999 and 2004, respectively. The latter came driving the number 1 car for Dale Earnhardt Inc.
Fellows had much more NASCAR success in the NASCAR Xfinity Series. From 1997 through 2013 he made 25 starts in the series, winning 4 races–3 at Watkins Glen and 1 at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal. In his Xfinity career, he earned 12 top-5 finishes and 15 top-10s. Amongst his most popular wins was his victory at the Gilles Villeneuve, which he scored driving the number 5 car for JR Motorsports.
Boris Said and Ron Fellows both started competing on the NASCAR road courses around the same time. And though Said never quite had the success of Fellows, he had a fairly solid career as a road course ringer in NASCAR. And yes, I’m also aware that his being on this list is a little bit of a cheat. But we’re going to put his two full-time seasons in the NASCAR truck series aside for a moment. In the top-2 series in NASCAR, he never ran a full-time season and featured mostly on road courses, though he did make a scarce oval attempt or two.
His career as a road ringer in NASCAR began in 1998, during his final full-time season in the Truck Series. This start came in the NASCAR Xfinity Series at Watkins Glen, where he finished 40th. Like Fellows, Said’s greater success was in the second-tier series thought he also made several starts in the Cup Series. From 1999-2022, he made 55 starts over the span of 20 years with a best finish of 6th at Sonoma in 2003 and 2004 respectively.
On the Xfinity side of things, he made 30 starts in 13 years, his most recent coming at Sonoma in 2024. In these starts, he scored 1 victory (at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in 2010), 7 top-5s, and 9 top-10s. Most recently, he attempted to qualify for the Roval Xfinity race in 2023 in the Hendrick 17 Chevy. He failed to qualify, however, due to rain washing out qualifying. He did get to start in the car in 2024, where he crossed the line in the 28th position.
A notorious road course ringer, specifically in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, was Jacques Villeneuve. To say that Villeneuve wasn’t very popular in the garage or the grandstands would be a massive understatement. Known for his aggressive driving in the closing laps of any race he was ever in, he was often a topic of controversy following his races. Though he never won a race, he made 9 starts in the Xfinity Series for teams such as Braun Racing and Team Penske. In those nine starts, he scored 4 top-5s and 6 top-10s. Often, he was in the mix for the race lead on the final lap. That said, his best career finish is 3rd, which he achieved 3 times in his career.
One of the biggest visionaries in the NASCAR garage today is the owner of Trackhouse Racing, Justin Marks. Though the team had simmered down in terms of performance in recent years, they’re still a force to be reckoned with. However, prior to being an owner, Marks was a driver in his own right. Most of his success came in the NASCAR Xfinity Series. Over 10 seasons, he made 36 starts, the most recent one coming at the Chicago Street Course for Kaulig in 2023. During that time, he managed 1 win and 7 top-10s. Making starts chiefly on road courses, Marks is often considered a road course ringer.
As NASCAR headed into a new decade, the presence of road course ringer seemed to simmer down a bit. This could have been for several reasons. As NASCAR started adding more road courses to the schedule, the regulars needed to be better at this style of racing. This, in turn, meant that there were fewer opportunities for ringers to secure competitive rides.
However, with recent entries like Trackhouse’s Project 91, RFK’s Stage 60, and 23XI’s unchartered entry, more opportunities were granted to world-class drivers to try their hand at NASCAR. The last driver to be featured on this list is the inaugural Project 91 driver, Kimi Raikkonen.
Raikkonen, obviously, is a world-class driver. He is the 2007 F1 World Champion and, in 2022 and 2023, he made 2 NASCAR starts to date. The first start came in 2022 at Watkins Glen, where he finished 37th. He was able to better that the following year at COTA with a 29th place finish.
That does it for us, Daily Downforce readers. What are your thoughts on this list? Did we leave any prominent road course ringer off? Who would you have added? Let us know! And be sure to keep it here at DailyDownforce.com for all the latest news and NASCAR race coverage!
