Based in Newcastle, having emigrated from New Zealand, Russell ran cars under the Novocastrian Motorsports banner for himself and sons, Drew and Aaren.

The trio combined at the wheel of a BMW M3 for the 2022 and 2023 Bathurst 6 Hours, finishing second in the ’23 edition.

He was also the driving force behind a family-run entry at the 2015 Bathurst 1000 where Drew and Aaren combined for a credible 17th-place finish.

“Ending up with a result with 17th on the lead lap after 161 laps of Bathurst, go figure – that’s pretty huge,” he said of that performance.

“The boys I thought drove unbelievably well – when you look at our sector times we didn’t have a lot of track position but we actually had sector times that were matching people.

“The boys were driving with the kind of thought ‘drive to survive’, trying not to do a thing wrong, just make it work, and they did.

“But when they were getting pressured from other cars and everything else, they stepped it up and made it happen. I’m the proudest father in the world.”

Russell was a familiar competitor in the Australian Touring Car Championship (latterly V8 Supercars), campaigning Holdens in a career that ran from 1994 until 1998.

Beyond that, he continued to make sporadic competitive appearances, including those alongside his sons of whom he was a strong supporter.

His voice was familiar to television audiences through his commentary work with PROCAR.

Away from competition, Russell was entrenched in motorsport the industry, running the Go-Karts-Go karting business.

He threw his support behind Cessnock’s ‘Wine Country 500’ project, which hoped to attract a round of the Supercars Championship as the Newcastle event fell off the calendar.

Wayne Russell was a racer, a proud family man, and a stalwart of Australian motorsport. Speedcafe extends its condolences to his family and friends.