What helped 12-year-old Russell Morseman IV make a successful move into big-block modifieds this season? iRacing. A four-cylinder youth class. Watching his family race. That’s what the soon-to-be eighth grader credits.
“In iRacing, several dirt tracks are scanned,” said Morseman, of Addison, New York. “The tracks change from tacky to slick. You have to find your right line. The changes in the state of the track are so close to real life that even the corners can be different. The top groove on one side of the track and the bottom on the other side could be the best lines.”
His father, Russell III, races with him in the big-block modifieds. Russell III built a sim rig for his son, where Russell IV has logged 80,456 laps behind a big-block modified.
iRacing doesn’t offer the entire experience, though, of competing in an actual race car.
“In iRacing, the cars are preset to turn,” Morseman said. “There’s no smacking the brake and setting the car in the corner. At Woodhull [Raceway], You have to learn how to make the car loose enough or tight enough. My dad said to jab at the brake to get the car to rotate because the corners are really tight. Once my dad told me to mash on the brake, and I got the car sideways, I had a big smile on my face.”
However, don’t think Morseman sat behind the wheel of a real race car without laps in an actual one. Morseman raced in the Warrior class at Woodhull Raceway last year, a four-cylinder division specifically for youth. There he won 13 out of the 15 features. That performance convinced his father to consider moving him up.
“At the end of last season, I let my son hop into my Bicknell modified,” said Russell III. “He looked like he drove it forever.”
The Morsemans bought another car, and Russell IV dived right in to prepare it for this season.
“I worked with my dad — he does everything on our cars,” Russell IV said. “I helped him take the car apart and put it back together. My dad and my grandfather build the engines for our cars, and I help them. [My father] learned from watching his dad, and I am learning by watching my dad.”
Russell Morseman IV credits observation — both in the shop and at the track — as a big reason for his success. So far, his season includes a heat win, one top five and three top 10s in seven features, for a class at Woodhull that draws 20-plus cars on a regular basis.
Mike Adaskaveg has written hundreds of stories since the website’s inception. This year marks his 54th year of covering auto racing. Adaskaveg got his start working for track photographer Lloyd Burnham at Connecticut’s Stafford Motor Speedway in 1970. Since then, he’s been a columnist, writer, and photographer, in racing and in mainstream media, for several outlets, including the Journal Inquirer, Boston Herald, Stock Car Racing, and Speedway Illustrated. Among Adaskaveg’s many awards are the 1992 Eastern Motorsport Press Association (EMPA) Ace Lane Photographer of the Year and the 2019 National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA) George Cunningham Writer of the Year.
