Scott Russell (motorcycle racer)

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For other persons of the same name, see Scott Russell.

Raymond Scott Russell (born October 28, 1964). is an American motorcycle road racer, born in East Point, Georgia. He is a former World Superbike and AMA Superbike Champion, has won the Daytona 200 a record five times, and won the Suzuka 8 Hours in 1993. Russell is the all-time leader in 750cc AMA Supersport wins.

After racing motocross as a child, Russell raced in WERA events before reaching AMA in 1987. In 1988 he was runner-up in the 750cc Supersport clas and also had some successes in Superbike and 600cc Supersport. He was Superbike runner-up in 1989, before winning the 750cc Supersport title three years in a row from 1990 to 1992 and winning every race in 1991. In the 1995 Daytona 200 he crashed on the first lap, but got back on the bike and won, finishing ahead of Carl Fogarty.

Having previously scored a handful of World Superbike podiums, he took this title for Muzzy Kawasaki in 1993, and was runner-up in 1994, but he left the series after a poor start to 1995 [1], replacing the retired Kevin Schwantz at Suzuki in the 500cc Grand Prix world championship. Staying with Suzuki in 1996 he came 6th overall.

He returned to World Superbikes with Yamaha in 1997, coming 6th overall with a pole and 2 podiums. In 1998 he came 10th overall but rarely ran near the front, and his season is most remembered for the Laguna Seca round, in which he made a blatant jump start and ignored the instruction to come in for a stop-go penalty, eventually falling off, almost wiping out team-mate Noriyuki Haga in the process. He had an unsuccessful spell racing Harley Davidson bikes in AMA road racing championship during the following two years, before a crash at Daytona in 2001 ended his career.

In 2005, Russell was inducted into the AMA Motorcycle Hall of Fame.