Aaren Russell was absolutely speechless after the final race at the Newcastle 500.
The Novocastrian driver came across the line in 19th position in the final race yesterday after a weekend of ups and downs.
At 26-years-old, Russell said he just wanted to make Newcastle proud after he crashed out in Saturday's race and failed to finish.
"I actually shed a couple of tears in the car. I just felt like the weight of Newcastle was on me and I felt like I just let everyone down so to be able to do this today in this car with this team, they've got such a small budget so to race up there with some of the big boys today is just, I don't know I can't describe it!"
"I'm buggered. I'm absolutely shattered."
Russell had a couple of close calls during the 250km race between other drivers on the track, but he had other problems as well with his cool suit not working properly through much of the race.The suit is meant to keep drivers cool at 2 degrees celcius, but Russell's suit was only getting down to around 12 to 15 degrees celsius.
"I was bloody hot all race. The drink bottle failed a little bit towards the middle stint so it was all going on."
 |
| Image Supplied. |
Drivers appeared to use Saturday's race to try figure out what they would and wouldn't be able to do on the new street circuit. Russell said that made yesterday's race much easier.
"I think yesterday was a bit of a great unknown so today we all knew kind of where the spots were where you could pass and what wasn't on. I had a few bloody hairy moments with some other cars that I thought were going to shove me into a wall so maybe I drove a little conservative."
"I'm really happy with the times. We were so consistent in the first part of the race and we even got the lead in that first stint so that's pretty cool."
"Everyone has been so supportive and it just means the absolute world to me so I'm kind of on top of the moon. I tried to cross the track at the end there to jump in the harbour but they wouldn't let me cross the track so that'll have to wait for another day."
"I'm just really happy to finish the event. I'm pumped."
