Ingall: It's a Change, Not the End
Russell Ingall would like to get one thing straight: he is NOT retiring.
This weekend’s Sydney NRMA Motoring & Services 500 will be the veteran’s last drive as a full-time member of the V8 Supercars Championship, but he plans to stay racing for years to come yet.
And he openly admits that if the opportunity was there he’d be kitting up again in 2014 for another tilt at the Championship he won in 2005 for Stone Brothers Racing.
“There is a lot of misconception, especially among the fan base, that I am walking away from the whole deal and that is far from it,” the 49-year old said. “If things were different and I had an opportunity to stay in the game I probably would. It’s not like I am over it!"
But the reality is once ‘the Enforcer’ steps from the Supercheap Auto Holden Commodore VF on Sunday at Sydney Olympic Park – his place taken by Tim Slade for 2014 – he is unlikely to race again in a category he has been a cornerstone of for 18 years until the PIRTEK Enduro Cup kicks off at the Wilson Security Sandown 500 next September.
That means Ingall will instead look to other categories for his racing future, including a tilt at some international races. He says there are a number of them on his bucket list including some NASCAR Nationwide road course events and the Le Mans 24 Hour.
“If the full-time V8 Supercars racing gig is over then I definitely won’t be stopping racing anything else. I am actively out there chasing opportunities both here and overseas.
“I am in the fortunate position where I still have some name overseas and still have some contacts overseas and I will be definitely pounding the path there … I am under no illusion it will be easy to step in there but they have a lot of different categories and I will definitely be working the phone.”
There will be no sense of intimidation about racing overseas for English-born SA-raised Ingall, who had a serious crack at the international scene from 1991 to 1995, after winning the Australian Formula Ford championship in 1990.
His overseas credits include winning the 1993 British Formula Ford championship and Festival and the 1995 UK Formula Renault series. He also drove in German Formula Three in 1992 and in Japanese F3 in 1994. His campaign took him to legendary circuits such as Monaco, Spa and Macau.
Although he didn’t make it to the very top of European racing, Ingall says it’s an experience he would never trade and has huge respect for other Aussies who have ventured overseas including Mark Webber, James Courtney, Marcos Ambrose and his 2013 PIRTEK Enduro Cup partner Ryan Briscoe.
“The experience I got over there made me a bit more street smart and a better racing driver too,” he said. “I can’t understand why more guys don’t chase it … it’s a shame some of the guys have turned to V8 Supercars so early and decided ‘this is it’ for the rest of their careers.”
Back home in Australia Ingall won the Bathurst 1000 twice with Larry Perkins in 1995 and 1997 and finished runner-up four times in the Championship, as well as taking his ’05 win.
In 2013, in his second year with Walkinshaw Racing, he runs 15th in the Championship with best finishes of third in Race 31 at the ARMOR ALL Gold Coast 600 with Briscoe and fourth in Race Two at the Clipsal 500.
Ingall admits the fuss generated around him this year has been somewhat unsettling, especially because many people have thought he was hanging up the helmet for good. He is unsure just what his emotions will be when he steps from his car for the last time on Sunday.
“My family are more emotional about this than I am,” he admitted. “I am not an emotional person, it’s just the way I was brought up. So for me it’s just the end of my time in the category and I am going on to something else.
“It probably won’t hit me until Adelaide rolls around. I might be at the track or I might be watching it on 7. It will be weird sitting there and I will be the worst armchair critic!”
