MONTREAL — Canadian road-racer Ron Fellows splashed his way to victory today in the first NASCAR points event run on grooved rain tires, winning when heavy rain and poor visibility forced officials to end the race 26 laps early.

The 48-year-old Ontario driver, a four-time winner in Nationwide Series road-course events, took advantage of Marcos Ambrose's pit-road speeding penalty to take the lead, and had a 33-second advantage over fellow Canadian Patrick Carpentier when the NAPA Auto Parts 200 was red-flagged, then called a few minutes later.

"There's so much water that you can't see," Fellows said minutes before the race with called. "Now, with the heavy rain, it's very dangerous."

After just eight laps on the 2.71-mile, 14-turn road course, rain and lightning forced an eight-minute delay. The cars returned to the track with the grooved Goodyear tires and many also had a single windshield wiper.

"This is ridiculous," early leader Scott Pruett said over his radio.

Grooved tires also were used in 1999 during a Craftsman Truck Series practice on the road course at Watkins Glen. In 1997, the tires were used in practice and qualifying for an exhibition race in Japan.

After averaging about 90 mph on the regular slick tires before the rain arrived, the leaders' average speed dropped to about 75 mph on the grooved tires.

"That was different," Fellows said. "This is incredible."

Ambrose finished third after leading a race-high 27 laps.

Ron Hornaday was fourth, followed by Boris Said, Carl Edwards, Jason Leffler, Greg Biffle, series leader Clint Bowyer and Scott Wimmer.

Jacques Villeneuve, the former Formula One and CART champion racing on the track named after his late father, had so much trouble seeing out of his Toyota that he ran into the back of another car during the final caution period. Running sixth at the time of the accident, he ended up 15th.

"I couldn't see a thing," Villeneuve said.

Teen star Joey Logano also wrecked during the caution. He finished 16th.

"It was fun, but it's not good to see guys wrecking under yellow," Edwards said.

Edwards' car didn't have a windshield wiper, so he reached out the side window with a squeegee to clean the windshield during the cautions.

The historic tire switch came a week after tire troubles derailed the Sprint Cup race at Indianapolis. Goodyear's tires weren't durable enough to withstand more than 10 or so laps at a time, creating a chaotic and confusing caution-filled race.