Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

INTERVIEW ColinEdwards II By Henny Ray Abrams ust when he was beginning to fulfill the promise he's shown throughout his short professional areer, Colin Edwards II is gone. After a blazing second half of the 1994 AMA Superbike season, Edwards II earned a ride on the Yamaha factorv' s first-ever full-fledged World Superbike. He 'll be on the starting line for the Daytona 200, but after th at he's off to uncharted waters. Edwards fairly burst onto the road racing scene in 1991. In addition to winning a h andful of races at the seasonending AMA/CCS final, Edward s II put in a s te rli ng rid e in h is prof ess io n al debu t on th e d an gerous Miami street circuit, finishing second to Jimm y Filice. His talent earned him a ride with the Southwest Mo tors ports tea m a n d in 1992 h 'e 26 went head-to head with Kenny Roberts [r., the younger Roberts join ing the AMA 250 GP wars after a year in the WERA F-II class. The tw o had a few epic ba ttles, notabl y at Charlotte and Braine rd and, in the end, Edwards wo n more races and it adde d up to a cha mpio nship - one, it turns out, that he's not overly impressed with. Th e nex t jump was in to the h igh est form o f m ot orcy cl e road r a cing in Ame rica, th e AM A Superb ike cl a ss . After his 250 GP title, much was expected and Edwards didn't disappoint, lead ing h is ve ry firs t s u p e r bike race at Phoenix. But he soo n realiz ed he was n' t on the pace and mad e it a learning year, lea di ng again a time or tw o, bu t also crashi ng w h ile contesting the lead at Road America. There we re those who thou ght he'd do ne too much, too soo n; tha t he was in ove r his head and that he was believing his own hype. For 1994 he had to prove to the wo rld, bu t more importantly to himself, that he was the real deal. The season s tarted slowly, then got worse. Early season difficulties effectiveIv end ed his chan ces for a title run, but ~t Mid-Ohio he broke throu gh, getting th e better of a to ugh ra ce w it h teammate Jamie James for his first AMA Superbike National win ever. After that he w as nearl y u ns top pa ble. He carde d w ins at Brainerd and Sea rs Point and fin ish ed th ird at th e season-ender in Atlan ta . The non-b eli e ve rs d w in d led and Yam ah a th ou ght e no ugh of Ed w a r ds to offe r h im th e cha nce to spea rhea d their World Superbike t~am. H e w ill b e joined b y Ja p a nese ri d er Yasutumo Nagai and the team will be based near Milan, Italy, wh ere Edwards an d his fathe r will be based for the year. Th e Dayt ona 200 ma y be h is on ly Am erican appea rance, and we spo ke to him durin g Dunlop' s recent Da yt ona tire test. Let's start wi th th is yea r. What did you expect starti ng th is sea so n? I th ou ght I really had a goo d cha nce. Even afte r the Daytona flop, I still felt like I had a good chan ce of winning the championship. And, realistica lly, I did . It was jus t eve ryth ing combined. I put in some good, stro ng rid es. Like at Phoenix I got a third. I think in the beginning of the vear I felt like I had a good chance, butrny confid ence rea lly wasn' t th at killer. I d idn 't ha ve th at go -o u t-a nd kick-everybody's-ass attitude. That definitely hurt me. In the beg inning of the year I had it in my brain that you can't beat a Ducati because they're faster and lighter - which I still think wa s unfa~r at the time . Since they ad d ed th e weigh t on, it eve ned things up a lot. Then, right before Mid-Ohio, I just had some bad luck. There was Pomo na, Laguna, and Road America . Three races in a row that 1 did n' t finish . Two of them were out of my control, but you can't win cham pionsh ips b y not finishing three of 10 races. Why did yo u refe r t o D a ytona as ~ flop ? We had a lot of p robl em s. We sho u ld have been here for the tire test last year and we weren't, becau se we had a new bike. And then when we go t here we kind of felt the bike w ou ld go pretty w ell r ight off th e truck with just a few little adj us tments - and we were sa dly mist ak en . We jus t got off on th e w rong track . It happens. We jus t got wa y ou t in left field on setu p, big time. We had a mo tor in the thing wit h no throttle control. It was either on or off. It abou t spit me and . Jam ie off a number of times. It was just a hard bike to ride last year. This bike we have now is good . My fas tes t race lap last yea r wa s mid -54. That' s sad. Were you intimidated by the speed of Daytona? No, not at all. The year before on the OW, I th in k I wo rked my way u p from the 16th row on the second wave and I was followin g (Doug) Polen the whole time. I worked my way to seventh, or someth ing like that. Turning consistent 54s and I think I did a coup le of 53s. That was my rookie yea r on a su perbike aro und th is place. I felt really comfortable. We came here last year and we were just way out in left field, setup-wise. When did you feel it started to come around? I really felt like we had a handle on it at Mid-Ohio. I wo uld sa y at Loudon we were close. We were getting closer . Then Dale Rathwell, the suspension gu y, had few ne w tri cks u p h is sleeve a nd we test ed th em out on the bike and they were good. They brought 10 times the feel to the rear end than we've ever had on this bike. It was a link age. It allowed a little freer movem ent at the top. It was more like the OW. You cou ld step it out: You cou ld han g it ou t there. And before, if it went out, you were out of contro l. If yo u ste p pe d ou t, it w as ju st so quick and so fast that you lost so much time. With the new linkage, you could step it ou t and slide it all the way to the edge of the track. At Mid-Ohio you seemed to be more motiva ted . I listened to these motivational tapes - as corny as it may so u n d . I d o n' t know what told me to d o it. I was up at 2:00 in the mo rni ng watching TV and I jus t saw an advertiseme nt on TV - it was all these gimmicks a n d s tuff - and I thought , "Aw, wha t the' hell. I ge t all that stuff anyway." So I got it and listen ed to it, and all the stu ff the gu y had to say total ly mad e sense. Mind over anyt hing . Just didn't matter what it is. If yo u say to yourself, and you know that you can d o it, then you can do it. He just basically told you to take a couple of words ou t of your voca b u la ry : " can 't, " "hope, " " maybe. " Ju st take th ose ou t of yo u r vocabulary . So inst ead of sayi ng "1hope I'll wi n," say "1 will wi n." It w as just something I ha d embedded in my brain - tha t I can beat these guys. It just sounds too easy. It really does. I lis tened to it ki nd of skeptically at firs t, and then I said I'll giv e it a shot. I'm going there and I'm going to win. Period . And you got th ese before Mid-Ohio? Yeah, probably a week and a half befo re Mid-Q hio. How many are there? It' s actually six tapes fron t and back. What was corny abou t it was tha t the re was two for passion , p rofit, and power. And you got two ta pes for each th ing and I just tras hed the passion and profit and listened to the power . It's jus t how it reall y is. Mind over anything. If you say you can do it, you can do it. If you say, " Maybe I ca n d o it," yo u ' re not going to do it. Do you stilI listen to the m? Yeah, I list en to th em every now and then. Agai n, as corny as it may sound, he ' s go t a d eal where he tell s yo u to ac tually ta pe-r ecord yo u rse lf. And in my case, racing, I'd tape myself saying "You ' re going to go out there 'and kick everybody'S ass. You ain' t going to look back. You' re jus t going to go out there and kick everybo dy 'S ass ." And listen - ing to that, with you rself saying that, it jus t embeds in you r brain . It' s a way of therapy . I've gotten away from kind of listening to them lately because it' s in there. It' s not going away an y mor e. I know what it takes. Is there anoth er step that this guy has? No, it' s just one step. A f t er M id-Oh i o y ou could n 't be stop pe d. What m otiv at ed m e m ost o f a ll was wh en I went to Mid -Ohio and broke the lap record by half a second or six-tenths. It' s not a long track. I thought all that, I put all that in my brain; it's not a long trac k an d I broke it by. six- ten ths of a se cond, kn owin g th at Polen had be en th ere th e ye ar before and Ru ssell th e year befor e that. Of cou rse, we' ve go t faster bikes and everythi ng 's a little bit quicker. Then I put myself in the category of the big guys and I sa id to myself, "You can beat these guys, no problem." How do yo u transl at e what you learn on th ese tapes to the race track? When you're on a track you' ve got a lot of times when you could be way more aggressive or conservative . I was mor e of a conse rva tive rider, keep it upright, look for you r op po rtunity the n ta ke it. After that, it was like, jus t p ass them; jus t ge t aro u n d th em so me ' w ay o r another. I mean, you may have seen it at Mid-Ohi o I passed three guys by ou tbraking them at the end of the straigh taway. I outbroke thr ee gu ys at one time on the third lap. And then the deal at Brainerd - rid ing aro und (Troy ). Corser on the ou tside and then the next lap on the insid e. I just said, "Just pass them." A n d y ou w ould n't h a v e d on e th at be for e? No, no wa y. I would've been more to sit for the oppo rtu nity, w ait to lin e th em up, follow them for a lap to see where he ' s weak. Tha t's w ha t I w as alw ays

• Cover