When Fellows and the lead pack pulled onto pit road on Lap 53, NASCAR officials ruled he was more than 5 mph over the 35-mph pit road speed limit, based on their scoring loop data, sending Fellows to the end of the line of lead-lap cars on the Lap-54 restart in 40th position.
“I don't understand it because I was following (Juan) Montoya, and I looked at my tack and saw we were doing 3,500 (rpm) in first gear, and pit road speed was 3,900,” Fellows said. “So I don't know if they got the wrong guy, or what. We were stacked up. We were running decently at that point, so it's just a shame that we didn't continue to hang with those guys. I don't know what happened, but they called us out. But it is what it is and we were fortunate to go on and get a top-five.”
From the 40th position, Fellows again mounted a determined drive to the front – his best of the day – which saw him back in the top-10 when the race was red-flagged on Lap 75 in the aftermath of a multi-car pileup in Turn 1. The final 13 laps after the Lap-77 restart saw the day's most eventful moments unfold in front of Fellows as he continued moving forward.
He passed Greg Biffle for ninth on Lap 78, and Matt Kenseth for eighth before the yellow came out a final time on Lap 80. During the final eight laps, all run under green, Fellows got by Martin Truex, Jr., for seventh and Robby Gordon for sixth and was in hot pursuit of Jimmie Johnson for fifth with four laps to go. That time wasn't sufficient to enable Fellows to catch Johnson. But leader Jeff Gordon spun in Turn 1 on the next-to-last lap to put Fellows in the top-five, and then-second-place Carl Edwards spun while chasing new leader and eventual race-winner Tony Stewart on the final lap, moving him up to his finishing position of fourth.
