Fellows, Lawson Win Pre-Grand Prix Races : Motor racing: Canadian takes Trans-Am event, motorcycle champion the pro-celebrity contest at Long Beach.

Ron Fellows of Toronto and motorcycle racer Eddie Lawson were winners Saturday in supporting races at the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach.

Pole sitter Fellows won the one-hour (54-lap) Trans-Am sedan race, the opener of the 1993 season, and Lawson was the overall winner in the pro-celebrity race.

Although he started on the pole in a Ford Mustang-Cobra, Fellows had to jump out of an Archer sandwich more than halfway through the Trans-Am to register his fourth victory in the series.

Tommy Archer of Duluth, Minn., driving a Dodge Daytona, passed Fellows for the lead at the end of the straightaway on Lap 11 and brother Bobby Archer fell in behind Fellows in another Dodge.

They ran that way until Fellows beat Tommy into Turn 1 on Lap 32 and led the rest of the way, finishing seven seconds ahead of Bobby Archer.

Tommy was taken out of the running when he hit Jim Stevens’ spinning Mustang on Lap 44, and Dorsey Schroeder of Ballwin, Mo., finished third in a Mustang, coming back from an early trip down an escape road after he missed a turn when his brakes locked.

“I had a great car and was able to conserve it and use it when I had to,” said Fellows, who averaged 85.19 m.p.h. and won $21,000.

“It was a perfect car today. It was just up to me to bring it home.”

In the pro-celebrity race, Lawson, a four-time world motorcycle champion, quickly worked his way through the celebrity field after he and the other pros had started the 10-lap race 30 seconds behind.

All drove identically prepared Toyota Celicas but Lawson was running among the top five by Lap 5, then passed both singer Peter Cetera and Rick Kirkhan of “Inside Edition” when he took the lead on the eighth lap. Kirkhan, second overall, was the celebrity winner.

“This was no different for Eddie,” Kirkhan said. “He’s used to going around corners on two wheels.”

Lawson, who ran once last season in the Indy Lights series and wants to move into Indy car racing, agreed that the experience was familiar.

“Racing in any facet is racing,” he said. “What you feel in the car is different (from what you feel on a motorcycle) but the racing end of it comes into play.”

The pro-celebrity race, run for the benefit of “Racing for Kids,” raised about $60,000, to be split equally by the Children’s hospitals of Los Angeles and Orange County, and the Memorial Miller Children’s Hospital in Long Beach.