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Daytona Dominator: The Russell Factor
memorable moments with mister d
by dean adams
Thursday, February 26, 2004
There are many vivid memories associated with Scott Russell and the Daytona International Speedway, so many that it's difficult to focus on just a few. No rider has dominated the Daytona 200 like Scott Russell did in the 1990s. Russell won the Daytona 200 five times on two different makes of motorcycles. Domination may not be a strong enough word to describe the hold Russell had on the Daytona 200. In the end, Russell winning the 200 seemed as probable as the sun coming up the next morning.
The memories: Scott Russell won it pretty and he won it from a position of strength, but he won it ugly at least once. And he lost it ugly too. I watched every one of Russell's wins, from the pit lane, from the press center and knew him as well. As anyone who knew him will tell you, after the first win at Daytona in 1992, something happened to Russell and he simply became a race-winning animal at the Speedway. After that first 200 win a definite transformation happened when he drove his car through the tunnel leading to the infield of the Daytona Speedway. He walked taller, talked bigger and where at other tracks he struggled, at Daytona, he ended more practice and qualifying sessions as the fastest man, seemingly all the time. He broke his own lap records, collected Rolex pole award watches like some men collect knives.
The backbone of the Russell-Daytona lore may sound like a myth but it isn't. Russell, sitting in the Speedway grandstands, watched Freddie Spencer win Daytona in 1985, and decided right there to start roadracing. Seven years later he won his first Daytona 200, and by 1995 he'd won three and people were already starting to call him Mr. Daytona. He finished the decade with five wins-which then seemed like a insurmountable number of Daytona 200 victories. When he nailed his fifth, many people felt it was an achivement that would stand for decades.
The '92 win was hard fought and showed that Russell could be a crafty devil if he had to. The Muzzy Kawasaki was down on speed—he'd finished fifth the year before in the 200—to Polen's Ferracci Ducati, but the two man race came down to the last lap with Polen leading to what seemed an inevitable win. The Texan had broken his own lap record in drilling the pole and seemed to be the man to beat. He led all of the final lap except the last fifty feet. Russell used the draft of several backmarkers to strafe past the Ducati and drill his first win at the Speedway. The margin of victory over Polen was .182.
Unforgettable moment from that race: Russell raising his gloved fist in the air in victory circle. With his first up he slowly raised his right index finger, and he held that position for over a minute.
In 1993, Russell was beaten by Eddie Lawson and the Yamaha, Lawson using almost exactly the same move on Russell that he'd used on Polen-the last lap high speed draft-pass. Russell had nearly dominated the race, but the first man to cross the finish line was Lawson. True story: prior to 1991, Russell used to rent video tapes of GP racing and study Lawson.
Unforgettable moment from that race: Russell sitting in the post-race press conference, cool and collected, saying that he didn't actually mind finishing second to Eddie Lawson. "I'm just proud to be here," he said.
If you're looking for a perfect Scott Russell moment, then the 1994-1995 Daytona 200 wins were epic. In '94 Russell qualified on the sixteenth row of the grid and looked to be hopelessly out of the running in the early part of the race. A Ducati romp looked to be in store with Polen, Picotte (from the pole) and Corser out front and running hard. Corser was leading the race when the pace car came out and compressed the pack into one long stream of bikes. When the green waved, Russell could see Corser and Polen and set off after the Ducati duo. In a few laps he was amongst them.
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