Farewell to an up and coming drag racer

Don't know if you all have heard but Joe Amato's driver Darrell Russell died Sunday after his car broke up and burst into flames during a Top Fuel race at Gateway International Raceway.

http://www.speedtv.com/articles/auto/dragracing/11769/

He will sadly missed. He was definatley an up and coming racer.

 

yeah... i was watching the race on tv when it happend.

really sad to see something like that. i could not beleave
they replayed the crash after it happend. they usually
dont do that. the car was covered in flames for a good
15 to 20 seconds the way it looked on the replay. not
sure if that was a major issue on his outcome or the impact
against the way. it's didnt seem that bad at first but then
again neither did dale earnhardts crash.

i used to work with Adam Petty when he raced in 1998.
after working with him and then later hearing about his crash
that took his life, that was hard to hear. a racing family is
as close as a regular family when you spend that much time
with one another every weekend.

 

Very sad. He was a truely nice guy and a good racer!

 

I was watching it too, I was worried about the fire, I had taped it so I watched it again, very sad.

 

sorry to hear that. being out of town this is the first i heard of it. my thoughts and prayers go out to the russell family.

 

Very sad indeed. He was defintely one of the good guys. The Amato Racing website has it setup where you can send a message. I think it's amatoracing.com. Double check with google.

 

He lived about 15 miles from me. I never knew him but all his peers spoke extremely highly of him.


Here's the link Hawk mentioned:"Fans may also send condolences and rememberances to inmemoriam@amatoracing.com – thank you for joining us in paying tribute to our beloved friend."

at http://amatoracing.com/

 

I am a couple hours north of Gateway. I heard about it from a dude who was there. Very sad.
Dan

 

we watched it that night on espn, were in complete shock when it happened,... even more so when they anounced the tragic news later in the telecast.

 

I was in shock when I saw it. When the car broke apart the front part along with the cockpit was swung into the wall with tremendous force and then burst into flames.

Rob Geiger NHRA writer and friend or Darrell's wrote a great story about Darrell

http://nhra.com/2004/news/june/062901.html