The Russell Factor
The RUSSELL factor
RACE WATCH
JONATHAN INGRAM
AMA and World Superbike Champion, Schwantz stand-in, America's next GP star?
SCOTT RUSSELL HAS FINALLY made it to the big leagues. His controversial midseason defection from the World Superbike ranks to the grand prix arena, amidst much smokc-and-mirrors negotiating, sent shockwaves through the sport’s inner sanctums, igniting heated discourse on team rivalry, riders’ contractual obligations and the state of world championship roadracing.
Russell’s move from the Muzzy/ Kawasaki World Superbike team to the Lucky Strike Suzuki grand prix squad was unprecedented. While contracts are often renegotiated by unhappy factories, team owners or riders, no rider has ever simply walked out and joined a new team in the middle of the year. Russell's decision to leave longtime mentor and team owner Rob Muzzy in the second year of a three-year contract was as much a surprise as the sudden retirement of injury-plagued Kevin Schwantz, the 1993 world champion Russell replaces.
Ultimately, Muzzy got caught with his legal guard down after Russell, soured by the team’s performance and fueled by the announcement of Schwantz’s retirement, privately hired sports attorney Alan R. Miller to check out his contract with Muzzy. A former Oakland Raider who regularly works on contracts for IndyCar drivers, Miller found Russell’s contract with Muzzy so “deficient that Scott could have been riding for anybody.”
As a result, Russell not only left but no money changed hands. “The only thing Scott agreed to do is ride (a Lucky Strike-sponsored Kawasaki) in the Suzuka 8-Hour,” said Miller of the separation agreement with Muzzy. But due to injuries sustained at the British Grand Prix aboard the Suzuki, Russell missed Suzuka and thus ended one of motorcycle racing’s nastiest sniping matches.
Clearly bitter over losing Russell, Muzzy described his former rider as an ingrate during the legal battle. Afterward. Muzzy, who declined comment on the content of the separation agreement, said only, “We had great success and I’m sure I'll remember those days forever.”
In retrospect, Russell says, “I’m sorry it had to happen like it did. I wish Rob had shook my hand and wished me luck, but that was too much to hope for. There was no question in my mind that I had to take the grand prix ride-for a racer, it’s an opportunity of a lifetime. I’ve done everything else that matters, now I want to win the 5()()cc world championship.”
If it’s like most everything else in his life, a GP title will not come easily for Russell. His life and career are mottled by the kinds of emotional blows that would knock out less focused mortals.
Between winning the Suzuka 8-Hour in 1993 and clinching the World Superbike title later that fall, a woman friend drowned in a hot tub from convulsions brought on by cocaine, according to the coroner’s report, while Russell was a guest at her house. No police charges were filed. In the fall of 1994. shortly after Russell returned a triumphant hero to his home track of Road Atlanta to win the last AMA Superbike race of the year, his mother committed suicide after a long bout with depression.
Russell’s first race after his mother’s death was the 1995 Daytona 200. Despite falling in the East Horseshoe on the second lap, Russell won America’s most prestigious roadrace for the third time. “It was a good place for me to let everything out,” says Russell. “On a day when 1 wasn’t feeling the best in the world, I sat on the pole for the 200 and broke the track record. I don’t know what gets me through the highs and lows...it’s a cruel world out there... you can lay there and die or you can dust yourself off and keep going.”
His recent move was another in a long line of solitary decisions for Russell, whose parents divorced while he was in high school. “The family wasn’t close and I dropped out of school in the 11th grade. I had to take care of things on my own somehow,” he says.
It’s been a rocky climb to the top. When he has the machinery to be the fastest, the drawling Georgian is typical of the South’s smiling good ol’ boy racers. If not, he is a moody, unhappy man. They used to say being around Texan A.J. Foyt when he was angry was like dancing with a chainsaw. If so, then dealing with Russell when he’s upset can be like making love to a blow torch.
In spite of his fickleness, Russell has accrued all the spoils that become a champion. A Porsche Carrera and Dodge Ram Sport truck occupy the driveway at Russell’s expansive house in Alpharetta, Georgia, belying his first job in a plastic-bag factory at age 17. Ironically, the house faces the genesis of his eareer-the north Georgia mountains. Trading in his Volkswagen for a Ninja 750, the angry teenager found solace living dangerously on these twisting roads. His adventures eventually led him to success in local and national club racing.
It was his live-to-win attitude-and the ability to back it up-that eventually took the spiky-haired racer out of a “brat pack” of Southeastern talent into the AMA Superbike wars and now onto the world stage. “Scott’s a man possessed,” says longtime friend Deano Swims, who rode alongside Russell in his formative years and is a regular visitor at the private flat-track near Atlanta where Russell trains by steel-booting around in the dirt on an XR100.
After nine seasons on four-strokes, it took Russell time to get up to speed on the high-horsepower GP two-strokes. Riding the bike that Schwantz developed and rode heroically since 1988, Russell’s biggest hurdle has been his almost casual braking habits compared to Schwantz, the master of late-braking maneuvers. “Braking late and pushing the front tire to the limit are the biggest differences compared to the Superbike,” Russell says. “What you’re dealing with is more speed when you get to the corner, and then you’re closer to the corner when you pull the brake on. It’s almost a panic situation.”
The team initially tried different pads and calipers to get temperatures up faster on the carbon discs. This hampered Russell’s first two races because the brakes eventually faded. According to team race engineer Stuart Shcnton, “Braking is a highly personal thing, and Scott’s style is quite a bit different than Kevin's. Scott isn't using the same pressure to start with, then he goes from vertical to full lean still holding low brake pressure. We’ve gone back to aluminum brake calipers because they retain heat a bit better. But we want to get back to the lighter composite calipers and find a material that will give Scott the initial bite he wants without fading later on.”
In just his third race, the French Grand Prix, Russell impressed all by yanking his mount from the tarmac after falling, then finishing sixth. At the next round in Britain, Russell was third-fastest in qualifying. He said, “I’m finding the Suzuki easier to ride here than the Superbike. It’s lighter, easier to stop on the downhill corners and easier to get turned. I guess this means I’m coming to grips with the bike.” Much to everyone’s surprise, Russell was fastest in the morning warm-up session...until a backmarker cut in front of him after doing a plug chop. The ensuing melee left Russell with a concussion, plus small broken bones in his left foot and wrist.
On the heels ofthat crash, the Lucky Strike team demonstrated its confidence in Russell by signing the Georgian for the 1996 season to a one-year contract for close to $l million. All this, incredibly, before the Czech GP, his fifth 500ce race. “Everything about the man spells winner,” says Team Manager Garry Taylor. “Scott got right up to speed in three races, and he gets better every time out. Best of all is his attitude. He’s got the right mix of aggression, professionalism and focus.”
There are no team orders, says Taylor, and Russell believes he will not only be challenging teammate Daryl Beattie for intra-squad supremacy next year, but taking on Honda’s Mick Doohan for the championship. “Daryl hasn’t come up and shown Mick he’s real serious yet,” said the ever-eonfident Russell. “When I set fastest time in the warm-up at Donington, they were both real concerned.”
While this GP rookie may already have his sights set on next year, he’s not so sure about making another trip to Daytona, even though he could become the first rider to take three straight 200 victories and make history as the winningest Daytona competitor ever. Unless Russell is convinced that the new-generation Suzuki GSX-R750 is ready for a victory, he may sit out the 200-mi 1er.
These days, as always, winning is all that interests Scott Russell.
.Jonathan Ingram is an Atlantabased freelance journalist w hose work has appeared in Sports Illustrated. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Inside Sports. This is his first story for Cycle World.
