Tim Russell headed to his last race at USA International Speedway with the intentions of going down in the history books as being the final winner at one of his favorite tracks. And his weekend started out looking like they would be heading in that direction as he qualified on the pole.
“The weekend started out great," said Russell. "We sat on the pole, we are
about a tenth faster than everybody else. The guys worked hard all weekend
and we were good off the trailer like we usually are there. We proved that by
getting the pole, and we started third after the invert. We took the lead about
lap 19 and lead from then on.”
Russell looked like it should have been clear sailing on his way to victory.
But his plans were changed when another competitor made contact with
him, destroying his car and ruining his chances for the victory that was
almost his.
“We were only running about 80 percent the whole race, just cruising trying
to save our stuff. Some people had some troubles with the restarts, and we had one around lap 119 and another driver decided to turn right into our left rear and take us out for no reason. It’s a shame, because we were looking forward to winning the last race at Lakeland, it would have meant a lot to the team.
Now, we have a tore up race car now for nothing. But we will go back to the shop and be back out on the track and be better than ever.”
