Just as another weekend comes and goes, so does another race victory for Florida youngster Tim Russell. And with the way Russell has been running in 2005, the rest of the Florida crowd will be glad to see the racing season go, because so far, Russell has pretty well owned it all.
Russell picked up his fourth-win-in-a-row and his 10th of the year on Saturday night when he topped the 100-lap Goodyear Challenge Series finale at Orlando SpeedWorld in Orlando, FL. It was Russell’s fourth Goodyear Challenge Series win of the year. Unofficially, he finished second in the Goodyear Challenge Series points race.
“I had a pretty good, strong car in the race,” said Russell. “I just needed track position to get up there. When I did, we were able to do some things with the leader and we were able to get another win.”
Surprisingly, Russell didn’t win the pole this time around. In addition to his 10 wins in 2005, Russell has also five poles in his 18 starts. This win, however, didn’t come in dominating fashion for Russell. In fact, he had a couple of scary incidents before the 100-laps were complete.
“We qualified fourth and they had no invert, so that is where we started. We were up to third and we were making a pass for second on the outside and we got run up high into the fence. It wasn’t a bad hit, but we fell back to fourth again.
“I got back by third and we were running down the first- and second-place cars. I caught them and we were getting ready to pass the second-place car. We were on the outside and the caution just came out. Well, we got slowed up, but he didn’t and
got me in the left rear and spun me through the infield. Luckily, I didn’t hit anything, I just dirt tracked it through the infield. I managed to miss the car that was wrecked too. I’m not sure how I did that, but it was pretty neat.
“We got back our spot; we got going again, got by second and started running down the leader. We had a late caution and we got to challenge for the lead.”
With just 20-laps to go in the race, Russell knew the pressure was on to get the lead.
“We tried to pass on the outside and (the race leader Jason Boyd) didn’t give us a lot of room, so we just fell back into second. Eventually, he drifted up and I was able to sneak by the inside and went on to win the race. We wanted to end the Goodyear season with a win and are really happy that we did that.”
Russell will have a weekend off before taking their Super Late Model to New Smyrna Speedway on Saturday, November 19th for the Governor’s Cup.
If you would like more information on Tim Russell and his future racing plans, contact Jeremy Troiano at (704) 726-6849 and check out the all-new TimRussell36.com.
