Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/127537
~ INTERVIEW ScottRussell • . ~ The man who mayb I g ekn O":l ....... 20 he lasting recoll ection of the fin al ro und ofthe 1991 AMA Superbike Na tiona l Champ ionship in By Miami is on e of sharp contradiction Paul Ca rr u thers to the rest of the seaso n. While Freddie Spe ncer celebrated his first victory in fi ve years a nd T ho mas Stevens whooped it up as th e new AMA Su perb ike Champion , Scott Russell's head hung low , despondent in defeat, For the majority of the season, th ou gh, th e memory was much different, for it was R ussell who usua lly occu pied the top ru ng of the podiu m. H ence, Scott Russell is living proof that the fastest man isn' t always the on e who captures the cham pionsh ip. Few would argue the point that Russell was indeed the quickest of the superb ike men in '9 1. The Muzzy Kawasaki rid er won four of the eight Nationals, sa t on th e pole for three of them, and likely would hav e won a fifth race if not. for a mech anical failure. In addition, he distingu ished him self in Wo rld C h am p io ns h i p Supe rbike racing by fin ishing second . to Doug Polen in th e American ro und of the series at Brainerd International Raceway. But wh en you o pen the record books hi s name is nowhere to be found. Instead, under the heading of 1991 AMA Superbi ke Champion , yo u see Stevens ' name. Keep scann ing and yo u co me across Mr. Ru ssell - he finished seco nd, missin g o ut o n the title by a scant two points. And to ma ke matters worse, th is is the second time he's lost the Superbike Champion ship by a few po ints. In 1989. Russell , then Yoshim ura Suzukimo unted, was defeated by his teammate J am ie J am es - by five poi nts. " Yeah, for sure. this o ne was tougher to lose," the 27-year-o ld Ru ssell said of hi s latest cha mpionship defeat. " I won four races and I th ou ght we had a good shot a t it. To lose it by two p o in ts in the en d , it wa s pretty di sappointin g." With hindsight being 20/ 20, it 's easy to look back at what cou ld have been . Russell was in content ion at Daytona, bu t he .p itt ed withou t reason late in the race an d ended up finis h ing fou rt h. After hi s seco nd-p lace finish to Polen in Brainerd's World Superbike round. he was sudden ly the ma n to bea t; he qualified fastest in Loudon and went on to win the Nati onal, but things went wrong at Road Ameri ca. After qualifyin g on the pole, he loo ked to have the race in hand before a fro nt tire went fiat and forced him out of the po ints . He bounced back to win in Ch ar lotte. but th in gs turned sour again in Mid-Ohio. In a race he desperately needed to wi n, Ru ssell struggled with the setup o n h is Kawasaki and he ended up fourth. The backbreaker was tha t Stevens had h is fin est day and won his first and on ly race of the year. Russell wo n again in Kan sas and Texas, but it was too li ttle, too -la te and wh en Fredd ie Spencer proved to be unbeatabl e in Miam i, the titl e went to Stevens. " I can blame it o n Elkha rt. I can blam e -it o n the mi stake I made at Daytona," Russell said. " I cou ld blam e it on Mid-Oh io. Basicall y, I didn 't perform as well as I could have all year. If I wo u ld have done tha t. and we didn 't h'ave the few littl e problems tha t we hadewe wou ld have cru ised to the cha m pionship. " Daytona and Mid-Oh io were the mos t fru stra ting. At Daytona I had a good chance of wi n ning the race. (Mig ue l) DuHam el and I went o ut and raced together in the heat and I beat him. We tri ed some six- p isto n ca liper brake s, and we just didn 't test 'em enough . I gambled and we tried them in the race and we had a problem. I T