Russell Went Home A Winner After The 2008 Florida Speedweeks
Starting the World Series of Asphalt Stock Car Racing, also known as Speedweeks, at New Smyrna Speedway off right is rather important. And that isn’t much of a better way to start off the week than with a win, which is exactly what Tim Russell on Friday night, Feb. 8th, when Russell won the first Super Late Model feature of the week in his #36 Rinnai Tankless Water Heaters car.
From there though, Speedweeks would be a challenge for Russell and the entire #36 team. It would be a challenge that would eventually see him skip one race, wreck one car and still finish second in the points.
Before beginning the races, Russell had two cars on the track at various times to get a feel for the better one. On night one Russell set a quick time for the Super Late Models and won the pole. He also dominated the race taking the lead on the first lap and never looked back. Russell got caught behind several lapped cars at one point, but was able to make it by without losing the lead.
“We had a good car in practice,” said Russell, after his victory. “(Jack) Landis put up a pretty big number in qualifying, but we were able to get him. We had a good car in the race. The lapped traffic was horrible. I about wrecked two or three times around them. It was terrible.”
For the following night, Russell turned in the quick time again and won the pole. He battled on the track and finished second to Jeff Choquette. On Sunday, lapped traffic got in the way of the leaders and Choquette even got spun out. Race officials placed him back into the lead though and Russell wasn’t quite able to get by him before the race was over, finishing second once again.
"All week in the driver's meeting they said if there is a caution both cars involved goes to the rear," said Russell. "But, no big deal. We will move on. We got another second and the car was good. I just hope when I am in the lead and I get taken out by a lapped car, I get put back in the lead."
Pretty much the biggest news to come out of midweek was a practice crash on Wednesday that destroyed Russell’s primary car.
“Something just broke when I jumped back on the gas,” said Russell, who hit the wall in the middle of turns three and four.
Russell then garnered finishes of fifth and second.
At the 100-lap Pete Orr Memorial race on Saturday, Russell started deep in the field charging his way towards Choquette. The longer the race ran under green, the better Russell was too. However, a late caution that resulted in a green-white-checker finish hurt Russell’s chances of the win and placed second.
“I believe if we would have stayed green the rest of the way it would have been interesting, we started to run him down on that long green flag run but he was just way better on the restarts than me,” said Russell.
Even more special than the second-place finish in the Pete Orr Memorial event was Russell being selected as the recipient of the Pete Orr Memorial Sportsmanship Award.
Tim Russell put on a racing clinic during the 2008 Speedweeks at New Smyrna. (51 Photo)
