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General Motors Media Press Release

FOR RELEASE: February 12, 2001

Ron Fellows and the Chevrolet C5-R Corvette Team Are Looking Forward to a Winning Season

TORONTO - Still jubilant after the clear-cut win of his team's Chevrolet Corvette C5-R at the Daytona 24 Hour endurance race, Ron Fellows of Mississauga believes that the victory confirms that the Corvette racing program has begun to hit full stride.

Fellows drove Team Corvette's Car #2 for the final five hours of the endurance race in Daytona last weekend. He and co-drivers Chris Kneifel, Johnny O'Connell and Franck Freon drove 2,335 and 1/3 miles over the 23 hours period, much of it in wet and cold conditions.

Fellows referred to his win as "My Stanley Cup." He said that, "Since the last race of 2000, Chevrolet has concentrated on a number of chassis tweaks, on improved aerodynamics and on tire development in concert with Goodyear. Engine work has brought improvements, including more horsepower."

The team's second entry, the #3 Corvette C5-R with Dale Earnhardt and Dale Earnhardt jr., Andy Pilgrim and Kelly Collins as co-drivers finished fourth overall, second in the GTS class. The Earnhardts, from NASCAR's Winston Cup Series, joined Team Corvette in the 24 Hours at Daytona as rookies. Both regularly campaign Chevrolet Monte Carlos in oval competition with only two races a year on road courses. Dale Earnhardt is a seven-time Winston Cup champion.

"I can't stress how important continuity is to a race team," said Fellows. "We are blessed to have had an experienced team of drivers familiar with racing at Le Mans, Sebring and Petit Le Mans return to the Corvette C5-R program this year. Add to that a proven world-class racer in Johnny O'Connell, and you can understand how excited Chevrolet is about the rest of the racing season."

Following Daytona, Team Corvette will run two American LeMans Series (ALMS) events at Texas International Speedway and Sebring before concentrating full-focus on Le Mans 24 Hour in June. The balance of the ALMS schedule includes rounds at Sears Point, Laguna Seca, Lowe's Motor Speedway and the Petit Le Mans.

Following a limited schedule in 1999, the Chevrolet Corvette C5-R program began in 2000 with a spectacular second-place overall finish at Daytona when one Corvette was just 30 seconds behind at the checkered flag. Following a class podium result in LeMans in its first attempt, Corvette finished with wins at Petit LeMans and at Texas.

"We have a robust and competitive Corvette program that is in good shape for 2001," said Herb Fishel, Executive Director, GM Racing. "With the momentum coming off 2000 and some technical improvements made over the winter, we believe the Corvette C5-R will be a force to reckon with."

The C5-R program is designed to create a GTS-class racer that would capably challenge the best of international competition while maintaining the integrity of the production Corvettes. The C5-R race version is based on the street platform and utilizes a number of common components.

It continues Chevrolet's tradition of racing production vehicles "to improve the breed." The engineers working on the Corvette C5-R race car work closely with the production car engineers to ensure that race car "learnings" impact present and future Corvettes.