When it came to this year’s World Series of Asphalt Stock Car Racing at New Smyrna Speedway (FL), Tim Russell might have come to the party a little bit late. However, he sure made up for it in a short amount of time.
Due to commitments to his ARCA RE/MAX Series team, Russell only rolled his Rinnai Tankless Water Heaters Super Late Model out for four events during the nine-day series of New Smyrna races. In those four races, he finished second twice and never worse than sixth-place – against Super Late Model teams from all over the country.
Russell capped off the week by finishing third in Saturday night’s Pete Orr Memorial 100.
“I’m pumped up for this whole Rinnai Tankless Water Heaters team,” said Russell. “They worked their butts off all week. Third tonight is not too bad considering all the tough competition that was out there. Plus we had to start seventh, so that made it a little tougher with all the good cars up front. We’ll take a third and we’ll move on, but I know we’ll be a lot better when we come back here.”
Because of his limited schedule, Russell was not in contention for the Florida Speedweeks championship this week. However, his record would have easily made him a favorite for the crown if he had run the entire schedule.
“If we could’ve been brave and had run the whole deal, then we could’ve won the points I think,” said Russell. “But it’s just too much to go back and forth from both tracks [New Smyrna to Daytona]. I wanted to give my full attention to the ARCA team and the guys at Hagans Racing for the first part of the week. I wanted to be focused only on the ARCA stuff when I was in Daytona and be focused only on the Super Late Model stuff when in New Smyrna.”
Russell turned 24 years old during Speedweeks, and running as many
races as possible is giving him plenty of experience despite his young
age.
“It helps to run as much as you can. I just feel like I’ve gained a lot of
experience this week. I’ve worked hard all off-season, and hopefully it
will pay off this year. We had some strong runs in both places, and
hopefully we’ll keep it up all season long.”
Russell’s next scheduled event will be next Saturday, February 24th, in
the Sunbelt Super Late Model Series event at Citrus County Speedway
(FL).
If you would like more information on Tim Russell and his future racing plans, contact Amy Hayes at (704) 455-2051 and check out TimRussellonline.com for all the latest Tim Russell racing news.
