Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

Scott Russell Interview December, it really wasn't working good at all. What were your initial impressions after leaving the tire test in December? I thought, 'Whew, we've got some work to do.' I knew what [ was getting into. I'm looking forward to trying to put this thing up front. When 1 left there, it didn't handle very good, I didn't have the right gearbox in there, blah, blah, blah. Q A seein g how things went last Q year with thethe pit stops?there you Harley team, are concerned about Everybody is question: What am I going Apit stops? Well,asking meto this about do the can't do anything I about it. All I can do is ride the bike. They hired me for the experience that T have and the things that I've ridden. Steve (Scheibe) was really interested in getting me 9n the bike and that maybe I could help him along with his program. But I can't go in there and say, 'Hey, 'guys, you've got to do this and this and this.' They should know by now what it's going to take. If they don't make it right this time, well, I won't be happy. They won't be happy. But that will be the way it is. I've won that race so many limes, I don't care if] don't do it again, really. Anything I do down there now is just a bonus. I'd just really like to win it on a Harley, so I hope they are prepared for that. They don't focus on that race like some of them do. They look at it as one race out of 14, but that's probably because they've never gone down there feeling like they had a chance to win. Hopefully, after our last test, all of that has.changed. They've worked for five years, they've tried real hard, and they haven't got the results they need. At this last test, we kinda broke through. ow they can see some light at the end of the tunnel. I hope they go back and get ready for Daytona the right way. By Paul Carruthers Photos by Henny Ray Abrams t was just a few short weeks ago that Scott Russell thought he was in trouble. He'd bitten off a bit more than even he could chew with this HarleyDavid on VRI000. Winning the Daytona 200 - well, that was the furthest thing from his mind. He was struggling, and he knew it. In fact, there was a good chance that "Mr. Daytona" was going to enc( up being embarrassed at the one race that's never been anything but kind to him. But that's all changed. After four relatively useless test sessions, Russell and the Harley-Pavidson team hit pay dirt at Laguna Seca in the weeks leading up to this year's Daytona 200 By Arai. They stumbled across something with the VR that has suddenly put a hop back in Russell's step. He ended the test at Laguna just a tenth of a second slower than Yoshimura Suzuki's Mat Mladin, a solid benchmark for the team to judge its performance on the track in the hills of Monterey, California. Hey, the way things are going - well, the notion of a sixth Daytona 200 win might not be such a longshot. The former World and AMA Superbike ation. al Champion is suddenly looking forward to heading east to Florida. And why not? He's Mr. Daytona and he's about to ride America's superbike in America's biggest motorcycle road race. We caught up with Russell at his home in Georgia and he filled us in on what to expect come Daytona time. word on the street is that you went pretty fast at Laguna Seca recently. What did you find? Basically, for the first four tests, we might as well have stayed at home. They were a bit useless, actually, after what we found out at this last one. Geometrywise, that's where we made the biggest gains on the bike. There are several different ways of getting to where we've gotten. You can jack the back out, rake the front out, do different things to get the same geometry. We've found what works real good for it. So tha t's basically the biggest turnaround. Q A • en -Q g: ~ ~ ~ .Js .f 20 IS it the point where you have a good baseline, and it'll just be a case of making small adjustments from there? Al'll tell you next Thursday when we .unload the bike here at Road Atlanta and ride it. I don't want to touch So Harley's view on Daytona is totally contradictory to yours. You hang your hat on what happens at Daytona. You're exactly right. I really probably haven't expressed that to them, but these guys can go through as much rope as they want before they hang themselves. I'm just here for the ride. I can't make 'em do what they need to do. It's just like they can't make me do the right thing when I'm at home. They've got to be ready, just like I've got to be ready for whatever comes my way. I'm ready. I can talk to them, and I will, but they know what they've got to get done. They know, they've watched, they've Q it from Laguna. I want to ride it here like it is. If it looks good, then, yeah, we have a baseline. I think it should do okay here because it's a bit similar to when we left Phoenix and went to Laguna. It seemed to work fairly good at those two places. We're hoping that that's going to be our baseline. We've got Road Atlanta and Savannah before Daytona - two more tests. You're Mr. riding AmeriQ ca's bike inDaytona, pressure than America's biggest road race. Do you fee] more normal going into Bike Week? No. [ feel like I want to win this one ore than any of the ones before. This would mean more to me than any of the other five - if [ could pull it off on the Harley. can you win the Daytona 200 on the Harley? can, yeah. There's no doubt that I .t"\.can do it. Now, whether the rest of the pieces fall into place and that it happens, we'll see. The bike, when we had it down in Daytona, wasn't that fast - it was 10 mph down on the Ducati in December. I can't go down there like that and try to do it. They're going to have to do some work, and they say they have. They say they've got some more for me as far as horsepower goes. If all those things are true, I'm ready. Everything else is just a question mark. Q A-] You've always had a strategy that works for the Daytona 200. Does Q this bike require you to take on a different strategy? My strategy has always been to get out front, set the pace, take whoever wants to go with me and sort 'em out at the end. Now, it's going to have to be the same deal. I don't look at it as having to save the motor, or being nice to it too much. Just taking care of my tires is my main concern. The motor - if it runs, it runs. If it breaks, it breaks. That's just part of the game. Basically, it's the same strategy for me: Go down there, put my head down, try to get out front and figure it out at the end of the race. A Based on your experience, do you think the VR will be easier on tires that what you've won on at Daytona in the past? I probably have to say that it'll be easier on tires than anything I've ridden before. But, again, we've been so far behind on every test that we've just kinda been running around. I haven't really focused on tires, tire wear, that kind of thing. I haven't had a whole lot. of laps put together to look at stuff like that. But I believe the twin's got to be a little easier on tires - with how smooth the power is and how it doesn't hit hard like the Yamaha did. At Daytona, they pretty much limit it as to how many tires you're going to have a. choice to run. They've only got a couple that are going to be any good, normally. I think it's more just getting the bike set up for Daytona. When we were there in Q A A seen. What goals have you set for beyond Daytona this year? Is it race wins, rostrum finishes, a championship? Race wins is a goal. Anything else,] don't care about. The way my contract is structured get points for finishes - like top-three finishes. If I get enough points, I get big bonuses a t the end of the year. Champion hip or not, I'm getting the money if I'm in the right spots throughout the year. Top three - that's my goal. I want to be on the top of the podium -'at least once. Q A If there was one race you could look to and think, 'That's the one I can what race would it be? l'd have to say Mid-Ohio. They say the bike ·goes good there, and I know I can go good there. At Laguna, with the way the bike started to handle, [ had more confidence in the front end of that bike than any bike I've ever ridden. That's where it all starts - at the Qwin: A

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