Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

smoke a t that track. Every time I walk th ro ugh th e ga rage a ll th is yea r and most of the time last yea r it just felt - this is har d to come ou t of the f--kng bus." At the season's first race in Aus tra lia, a t Phillip Is land, Russell h ad tr ouble with the wi nd and his tires; most of the Michelin rid ers did at one time or ano ther . Ha g a wo n o ne rac e , Foga rty th e other. At Donington it w as snow ing in pr actice, then the track wa s too cold to give hi m a ny co n fiden ce in th e fr ont end . Haga won both races. Of Monz a he says, '1us" forge t Mon za," for bot h himt self and Haga, who high -sid ed nasti ly in practice and rode hurt in the race. M isana was' where he tested the new forks after Monza. "Go t some temperature working ou r way a nd got these new front forks bolted to the bike and it was bet ter for the braki ng," Russell said. "The bike used to ' really d ive on th e b rake and th e back en d wo u ld ge t loose, so it lim ited how hard I could attack in a corner. Now I feel mo re an d m ore th at I can a tt ac k hard er and hard er. It gives me a little bit more feel for the front a nd gives me a beller feelin g under the brakes . "And I think I'm gelling a lot closer now with th e bike. I'm g oing to jinx myself, but I think we're ther e. I'v e got the best f-ing team I've ever been with right here. I' m happy as hell with that. And yo u kn ow we maybe swi tched to Michelin and there's a pric e you've got to pay for the thin gs you do . So far the p enalty' s been h ig h . But I th ink it 's going to start co ming ba ck our w ay. I think it's going to come back to u s. I think we're close. I feel lik e I can win to mo rrow," he sa id on th e eve of the Albacete round. "A nd I tell yo u what, I haven' t felt like tha t in a long time. I haven't ro lled u p to the grid, oth er than Daytona - forget Dayt on a - in a World Superbike race in a yea r or more and felt lik e I was go ing to win th is race this day." Albace te was more unset tled weather a nd h e didn 't w in . N u rb u rging was much the sa me. Misano was where he hoped to shine for the team, which is based outside of Milan. As he struggled, Haga sho ne - for a while, at least. In Albace te, Haga admitted th at h e coul d n' t ride tha t hard in every race in every cond ition and expect to finish . Russell saw it corning . "Next qu esti on: No , i t doesn' t bother me tha t he's been doing good," Russell said . "It doesn 't. I'm happy for Yamaha. They've w on thre e ra ces beca use they've gone so long. I'm just sad that it wasn' t me to give it to them . Not sa d, but I w ish it wa s me . As far as h im being qu ick in the team , it' s good for the tea m m oral e , a nd th e n o n m y side, we've had worse res ults tha n we had at the b e ginn ing of th e s eas o n . M y morale' s been d own , confide nce down, wo nder ing if th ere' s a way o ut. I' ve been struggling wi th that. It wa sn' t jus t him beating me, it was 10 other gu ys. So far I'm no t su re how he's really do ing it yet, It'll wo rk so me times , so me times it . won ' t. That's no t the way the book says to do it. "You need to ride it kind of like he does . Whe n some body passes you , you need to pass them right back; otherwise they ge t away. He' s 20-wha tever and I'm 33 and I've been in it for a while and I do n't wa nt to get hurt doing so me stupid move. If the move doesn't feel rig ht to me, I'm not going to push the issue. I'm jus t not going to do it. I' m going to ride wi thi n my limits - that' s where I'm going to be rig ht now . I realize that my cham pions hip hop es ar e really dim this I year, so for me , it' s to prove to Yamaha that I still can do thi s, but in the right wa y, my way." Not winning has not only taken its toll on Russell , it' s made him m ore reflective. "I beat m yself up mentally - hard," he said. "Like in the Grands Prix, I had some good results on the Suzuki, podium a cou ple of times. Led a Grand Prix for 10 or so laps at one point. That was ok ay. I didn't look at that as a downtime. I looked at la st year as the low poi nt of my caree r: just coming back to the World Su perb ike se ries and fin ish fifth and never win a race. I'm just not goi ng to ge t my head with this bike and ge t it working. Plu s, we ha d a lot of tire tro uble last yea r. We had some trou ble at so me races and it rain ed a lot: And it was like, man, this 'is payback for all the bad things I've ever do ne to any body in my life, for sure it is. Last year was payback, an d I th ou gh t, 'Well, hell , we're go ing to fix it this year. We're going to change tires a nd we're going to co me ou t swi nging next yea r.' I go t my new crew chief, Fiorenzo Fanali. I'll take that guy up against a nybod y in the world right now. I've been wi th (Suz u ki's) Stu a r t She n ton, I' v e b een wi th (Muzzy Kawasaki's) Ga ry (Me d ley). Hey, this guy's right here. I'll take him over anybod y. H e' s good w it h his ri d er. He's good for the head. A pep -upper if yo u need it. I can be as d own as I can be and he' ll say, 'Scott, for sure tom orrow' s bet ter: even th ough h e k nows it ' s not goi ng to be. It's a head game. Ha lf this ga me's menta l. More tha n half. And I bea t the hell out of myself mentally this yea r and it' s bad. It' s w hat's killed me m ore th an th e b ik e, I th in k, a nd the tires." With time on his career running ou t, Russell h as had time to loo k ba ck. He doesn' t always li ke wha t h e sees, bu t he's man enough to admit his mista kes and help anyone coming his wa y. Whe n he' s finished wi th raci ng, he's thinking of se tting u p an East Coast ve rsion of Kenny Roberts ' tr a i n in g ranch at a spread he bought south of Atlanta. "Wh en you were 21, yo u could stay u p all night and go ride the bike the nex t day . I' ve d o n e all th a t s -- - a n d it's ca ught up with me. I can't do it a nym ore. I'd s till be doing it if I co uld, because it was fun and I was havin g fun doing it. Now it's like Scott's 33; I've got to kind of g e t se riou s about it if I' m goi ng to keep d oing it, or go home." He wo nders how good he could ha ve been . . " I think abo u t it, but [ d on't le t it b othe r m e b ecause [ fee l like yo u' re ' eith er f-ing good naturally or you have to work real hard to ge t th er e, kind o f like a Schwantz-Rainey." Rob Mu zzy, for whom Rus sell rode th e Kawasaki to his greatest success, once said he 'd chosen Rus sell as Doug Chandler's teammate for their synergy. He was hoping that Rus sell's workmanlike approach would blend well with the na tu ral talent of Cha ndler, that the two would complement each other. "I didn't feel like [ was wo rking that hard, though , to be honest wi th yo u:' he sa id . " It was good to h a v e th at guy (Chand ler) on the team; he's my ya rdstick - tha t's how I measu re m yself on the s a me b ike . [ just wanted to b eat hi m ." Ever since he began racing motorcycles, Russell's focus has n't cha nged. "I wo n m y first race and that's w hy I went back the next weekend, because I enjoyed winning so much. Talla dega, Alabama, 1986, Ni nja, 1985 model. Won m y firs t race a n d [ a l rea dy lo v ed m o torcycl es , b ut [ knew the n th at I rea lly liked it a lot then because that's why [ went back. My career jus t snowballed . It hap pened. Seven years later I' m world cha m p. It just happened for me. I feel like [ don't d eserve it so me times. All m y friends are p ret ty m uch where they were. I went to school with them , they' re all wo rki ng nine to five some of th em don't work a t al l. An d me... it all fell in Scott' s lap. It's made m e ri c h from rid in g a m o t or cy cl e th at' s kind of cool. I didn't rea lly wo rk as hard as maybe so me peo ple thou ght I did at it. It carne mor e na tu ral to me . I just felt good on a motorcycle. Now it' s th e o ther way arou nd. Now, I' ve put m ys e lf in a p osition w here I've ha d four down seasons n ow in my book. My career wa s alway s on the u pswi ng . Now, '95, it go t the re and then it's bee n on a long slide, bu t I'm not ready to go horne ye t. I' m fig hting it , m an, h ard . Fighting it hard to stay, to be here . Now I' m having to work ha rder a t it - more thinkin g, mor e workin g wi th the guys." The results ha ven 't corne yet and it's wo rking aga inst him. His contract automatic all y re news itself if he' s in six th p lace in the championship at a certain poin t o f th e y ear. Af ter the Misa no round he was in 11th, 81 points behind sixth - ironi cally held by Haga - and 138 behind championship leader Troy Corser. The contract wa s negotiated because h e was con fid ent h e could make th e mark - he was sixth in the championship last year - and becau se he couldn't wait for the delivery of the long-awaited new YZF750. As it turned out, the cont rac t p rovision for ren ew al worked agains t him after his d isastrous sta rt. "Because that's all that [ could think abo ut at the beginning of the year," Russell explained . "Because [ kn ew the new bike was there, I wanted a two-year contract - [ wa n ted guaran teed pa ym ent. And they coul dn't fit two years of s-on this bike that I d on 't like. But at the end of this, I'm goi ng to corne back and be th e Wo rld Champion again - if the . bike's as good as they say it will be. It will be; there's no d oubt it will be. My ma na ger talked the m into d oin g this sixth-place d eal and they did th a t for me, and it wo rked against me. [ got off to a bad start and all I cou ld see was my career going like this... see my log cabin fading away in th e d ist ance. And m y possib le cha nces of be ing able to come back on a good bike and win the cham p ionship again. A nd th a t ' s wo rked agains t me . I'm over that now . N ow [ d on 't care. If I ai n't in th e top six and they do n't wa nt me back, at the end of the d ay I kno w [ carne back and pu t everything I had int o th is season and I'm going to finish where [ finis h. And if they don 't ap preciate that, I'll go somewhere else. I'll go horne." Ru ssell is se riou s about th at. H e wa nts to finis h his career in fro nt of the horn e crowd, sleeping in his own bed most nights, no t living in airpo rts a nd mo torh omes. "I definitely wa nt to race a t h orne again ," he said . "Let's jus t say th at . I don ' t want to d o it next year. [ wa nt to win th is champ ion shi p agai n an d I know I can do it." f :\" 21

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