Former AMA Superbike Champion and Superbike World Champion Scott Russell is planning to come out of retirement and compete in the AMA Superstock race March 6 at Daytona International Speedway. Russell, who earned the nickname of “Mr. Daytona” for his five Daytona 200 Superbike race wins, some in spectacular fashion, will ride a Yamaha YZF-R1 on Michelin tires, the same combination Russell used to earn his final Daytona 200 victory in 1998. The racing project is aimed at promoting the sportbike customizing business (Jamie James Productions) and new riding school (Jamie James Yamaha Champions Riding School) of Russell’s former teammate Jamie James. “Yeah, I’m going to be one of the instructors at his school, and as a spin off, we decided to do a few races this year and try and promote the school and promote Jamie James Productions,” Russell told Roadracingworld.com Friday, “and just go out and have some fun.” Russell said he picked up two brand new Yamaha YZF-R1 streetbikes (provided by Yamaha) yesterday and personally delivered them to James’ workshop in Asheville, North Carolina last night. “It’s all last-minute, but that’s normally how Daytona goes,” laughed Russell, who said he has done no testing and will first ride his bikes during the CCS/ASRA weekend at Daytona February 28-March 2. “I’m going in cold turkey, man. I’m coming back in after seven years sitting at home. It will be interesting to see how things go. “The original goal was to just have fun, but I know me and I know when the shield goes down how I am. But realistically, I’ve had a long time off and I’ve got a lot of cobwebs to clear out and I know everyone’s picked up the pace since I’ve been gone. Luckily for me, we won’t have to be dealing with too many factory teams in that class. To be realistic, I guess the goal for me is top five.” Asked if there was a possibility of him doing more AMA Superstock races in 2008, Russell said, “I think so. I think they want to go down there and see how this goes. We’ll just take baby steps right now. I would like to do the whole series, if it were up to me. But we’ve got the school [which starts April 24-25], and I don’t know if there are conflicting dates and stuff with that. And then the money issue of traveling all the way to California. There’s some things to be worked out before we can continue, I think. Originally, we talked about five races: Road Atlanta, Barber, Daytona, Virginia and Mid-Ohio. Yesterday, when I met with them they said, ‘Let’s just go to Daytona and see how we do, and then we’ll go from there.'” Russell announced his retirement from racing at Daytona in March 2002, one year after he was involved in a horrific collision (~http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6MIBaC2My0~) on the starting grid of the 2001 Daytona 200. The injuries Russell suffered in that crash prevented him from racing again, professionally, although he did participate in a WERA National Endurance round at Miller Motorsports Park last June and in the SunTrust MOTO-ST 8 Hours at Daytona last October.