Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

.. Superbike Series title - and retain his 750cc ~uperspo n crown for the third successrve season. So when a win eluded him yet again at Spa. Ru ssell was deepl y disappointed. H e tried to pu t on a brav e face. bu t under the facade you knew he was smarting. He took third in th e fir st leg . after Po len had been sent up the slip road by Fa la p pa . In th e second leg he came in seventh in an epic nine-bike draft t h a t superbik e regulars marked down a s th e best-ever World Championship Superbike ra ce. R ussell la ter sat in his pit in a deep depression. pointing to a 'spo ngy' brake for n o t getting further up the leaderboard. " When I tried drafting. there was no way I co u ld pass o n the brakes." Ru ssell said . "A nd then in the last lap , my th rottle hung wide open in the fast left wh ere the new circuit joins th e old road sectio n." Talking to Russell . you get th e impression that he expec ts a lot of himself - even tho ug h he is a roo kie on the Eu ropean trail. " I kn ew coming into thi s season it was a learning year." he says. " I' ve pro ved I can run up front and I keep pu shing - maybe a littl e hard so me ti mes a n d m ak e a few mistak es. Yo u j us t can't afford to do th at over here. But you as k if I' m u nder pressure? The o n ly p ressu re is what I pu t on myse lf. " In the States. wh en Do ug (Po len ) and I race together we've been real close. Make a mistake. he 's always there - and I'm there for him. Bu t over here. you make a mistak e and you 've got four, maybe five guys to dea l with." T he batt le betw een th e two has spi lled over into America this year. with Polen doi ng as many AMA races as the Worl d Championship Superbike Series wi ll allow. Russell put one o ver o n th e World Champion at Dayton a with hi s now world famous down-to-the-fin ish-line pass. Then Polen turned the tabl es at La gu na Seca but Ru ssell won a t Ch arlotte and Polen crashed, So is th ere any mal ice between the two - a kind of feud perh aps? " Heck no," Rus sell sa id. " We' re all good friends. I know some people want to ma ke a rivalry ou t of it. That's good for racing and fin e - we'll go alo ng with that. I look at h im like anyo ne else o ut there. yo u kn ow, - somebody else I wanna beat . If we can be friends off-track. that 's coo l. We're civilized people." · Iron ically. the paths of Russell and Polen crossed during Russell 's earl y racing career - in the Suzuki Cup Seri es. " Po len was around when I started out in 1987 and won most of th e stuff th en ." Russell recalled. " Bu t in 1988 he had moved on and I pretty mu ch won all of them then ." That year, Russell had his own bike and was AMA Roo kie of the Year. but for 1989 he was on the Yoshimura Suzuki team alongside fellow sou therner Jamie J ames of Louisiana. And Russell paid to ridel " I paid $5000 an d 40% of my winni ngs. bel ieve it or not." revealed Ru ssell. "At tha t point in my career it kinda gave me a cha nce to get o n an 'A' ride and show what I cou ld do. For me. it was an inv estm ent in my future ." Ru ssell certai n ly made the best of it. He finished second in the AMA Superbike Series. losing the titl e to J am es by j ust five points. Russell scored his first career National win at Road Atlanta , too k seconds at MidOhio and th en at Heartland Park in Kan sas and was th ird at Loudon even th ou gh he had brok en hi s col- larbone on the Frid ay morni ng of practice. But some pr ess reports at the time cited Russell as th ro wing away h is cha nces with mistakes - pa rticu larl y at Road America when he a nd James cras hed o ut. Ru ssell refutes th is vehemently: " I blew my chances? I crashed with J ami e but it wasn't my fault. He ran into the back of me at Elkhart. I ha d led every lap of the race. then on the last lap going ·in to turn five off the ba ck straightaway, J am ie go t in too quick, At that sta ge yo u are at the edge of th e race tra ck and he cam e in off th e draft too quick. started to brake and hooked up on my exha us t and took both of-us down." Russell would sti ll have lost the cha m p io nsh ip by a sing le point even if he had won at Road America. If any thi ng. the title was lost by no t finis hi ng Dayton a. and there Russell acce p ts the blam e. '.'1 stalled th e bike on the lin e." Ru ssell ad mi tted. " And got h it fro m behi nd. In th e cras h the chain adj us ter was knarled up. We had a red flag. but didn 't notice the problem befor e the restart. I was ru nn ing third in th e race when the chai n tension wen t a nd th e cha in fina lly came off. I pu shed in . and l o~ ! three laps. If I had finished th ere , , . If any thing . it was the emergence of Doug Cha ndler on the Muuy Kawa- as more of a judge than Superbike. I do n ' t feel I had the sam e stuff a t tha t p o i n t (i n Su p erbi ke) because he (Chandler) was the sen ior g uy on th e team . I used the year as a stepp ing stone to get better agai n." When Chandler moved to Grand Pri x racing last year . Russell became Muzzy's number one and retained hi s Supersport cro wn . running nine races unb eat en . H owever, the Superbike titl e eluded him again and that hurt l " Las t yea r was m y yea r," sai d Ru ssell. who wo n four of th e races more than any o the r rider in the series. " And it was a rea l letdown not to win the title. T he g uys worked so hard on the bikes and I worked on my riding a nd to miss the cha mp io nsh ip by two points was a bummer. " (Thomas) Stevens won it but only won on e race. H e said it was co nsistency. I don 't beli eve it. Like. he's o n the same bike as me th is year and he has n 't do ne it (bea ten Ru ssell ). He ain't even come close!' T h cru cia l p oint i n la st yea r 's cham p io nsh ip came at Road America wh en Ru ssell had a healthy 20-second lead a t the halfway po int and pic ked up a fla t front tire . Russell pitted for fres h rubb er . the n cha rged back throug h to point scoring positions o n ly for the motor to fail o n the fin al lap. " I was in the poi nts . Two or three would have been all I needed. Bu t that's the way things go ." a new found aggr essive nature on the ZXR750 this season. Certain lv anvone who has seen him racin g i..{ Europe could not doubt hi s total comm itmen t. And there's comm itment o ff-track too . Lik e movin g away from his Georgia hom eland to live in no rthern Califo rnia - just to be clo ser to Kenny Roberts' ran ch in o rder to hang ou t with the rest of the guys on the dirt track XRIOOs! . So wh at has bron ght a bo u t the apparent change in atti tude this year? " I guess it 's true I' m mor e aggressive now ," Russell said. " Being over here (in Europe) does tha t to yo u. And fin ish ing second last year in th e (AMA Superbike) cha m p io nsh ip has made me even more determined to win it th is yea r. I'm just sure I'm going to win the (AMA Superbike) titl e. I'm tryi ng to get better. I want to go on to bette r th ings and be a Worl d Cha mpion o ne day . And you've got to be aggressive if you wa nt th at." R igh t now. Ru ssell will concentrate o n AMA raci ng - his next for ay to Eu rope may not be u ntil Sep tember. H e had hoped he wou ld be able to do mor e but says it loo ks likely he'll only make Assen, Mon za a nd; of course. Sugo. "The original ga me pl an was tha t I ho ped to come over and be right in th e poin ts after the firs t four races," Ru ssell .said at Spa. " T hen we were hoping Kawasaki J apa n would help saki that spo iled Russell 's title ho pes. " He kinda cam e o n strong at th e end of the season and won a couple of races and I got seco nds," Rus sell said. Chandler's perf o rm an ces o n th e green ma chines were eno ug h to convince Russell not to take up a Yoshimura option for 1990. Wh en Rob Muzzy ca ll ed and as ked Ru ssell to join Chandler on th e Kawasaki team. the Georgian didn 't wait for a second ca ll. " I could see the Kowee's were flying at the en d of the year a nd I needed so meo ne who had been in racing and had better results (to ben efit from) , so I figured Muzzy was a good way to go. Ru ssell joined Chandler and 1989 Dayton a 200 winner J oh n Ash mea d on the Muzzy team. bu t was overshadowed by Cha ndler in the Superbike title chase. altho ugh in Supersport it was Ru ssell wh o took the title. " I ran a lot of seconds in Superbi ke, but in the Supersport class, whe n we were o n identical bikes I beat him more times th an he bea t me. I looked o n tha t Even though the Superb ike tit le has proved elus ive thus far. Russell has developed into a world class fourstroke racer under Muzzy's tutelage and Russell is gr tefu l for the guidan ce a of the man wh o also put rid ers like ' Eddi e La wson and Wayne Rainey on the roa d to stardo m. " Muz zy h a s helped me a lor. " Rus sell said, " He's got good bikes, a lot of experience and is really helpful with th e setu p of the bik e o ver the pas t coup le of years. Now it's tim e for me to take over that. I'm the guy that's riding th e motorcycle, I've go t to be the guy to make th e decisions. It's that poi nt of my career where I think I'v e go t to realiz e I'm on my o wn ." For the record, Russell 's race wins came at Loudon by 28.75 seconds. Ch arlotte where he bea t M ig u el Du H am el by 0.042 seconds , Heartla nd Park by 16.013 seconds , and another emp hatic 11.84 second victory at Texas World. It 's been said tha t Ru ssell has shown fu nd the rest of the seaso n so we could do the rest of the races. But at this point it doesn 't look like that's going to happen becau se I'm not up in the po ints . " I don 't even kn ow if th ey (Kawasaki Japan ) ever intended that. I think it's j us t so me th i ng we hoped wou ld happen. That 's o kay thou gh because I've got a priority now of winning the (AMA Superbike) cha m p io nship that I' ve been trying to get for so long an d missed so man y tim es. I'm going to get it this year. " And the n what? Does Scott RU SSell see himself follow ing Doug Cha ndler's path in the 500cc Wo rl d Cha m pionshi p? " I rea lly don't know ." he sa id. "There 's not a lot of good 500 rides avai lable right now . I'm on a good deal for superbi kes and I'm pretty conte nt where I' m at (with Muzzy). Right now . I'll continue wit h the AMA races. I want that tit le, T hen we'll see what happens next year." Ol o ...... 2

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