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.
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“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.
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