Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

four laps to go while in the middle of a IG-man drafting battle. "At that point it wasn't a charge mode, it was kind of salvage and survive mode," Edwards said. "For a minute there, I thought to pull in and get a new tire, but then it didn't get any worse." There was also a chunk missing from the left side, but Edwards managed to hold fifth place. The next stop would be at the Autodromo Santamonica at Misano. It's a race that Edwards has tried to expunge from his memory. '1 forgot about Misano. It's not even in the computer," he says, then undeletes the memory. "We just had tire problems. We qualified qood (fifth fastest). We knew from the start that we were ill trouble because I got out on the and tendons in one leg and causing him to alter his riding style. Changing direction in the early races meant muscling the bike. "There was blood in my gloves from having to do it all by hand," he says. What was as instrumental in getting the bike right for Monza was a trip Edwards made to the Suzuka Circuit in Japan in anticipation of the prestigious Suzuka 8-Hour. Since he'll be teamed with Nagai on the number-one Yamaha team, he went straight there after the Donington race to learn the track he'd never been to and test the 8-Hour bike. He returned from Suzuka to Monza with a "totally new setup" and renewed confidence. "I don't race to come second and I know I am capable of winning there." many," Edwards sai~. "I was a long way back after the second chicane so I had to work hard to catch the leading group. Once I saw (Pier-Francesco) Chili crash I decided there was no point in pushing it and I though the important thing was to have a Yamaha in the top three. I rode a smart race; some of the others didn't." Edwards backed that up with a fifth in the second race, though not for lack of effort. Halfway into the race his rear tire began to slip on the rim and the resulting vibration caused him some angst. Nagai would finish fourth. The enthusiasm they left Italy with dissipated in 'the heat of southern Spain at the A1bacete circuit. After qualifying ninth on a foreign track, Edwards jetted into third place, just behind Castrol race tire and it just didn't have any grip. I complained, I told them, 'I've never experienced having to ride Like thato' " On top of the tire debacle, his Yamaha developed a false neutral between fourth and third which sent him off the track. Four laps later the same thing happened and the first race was history. For the second race, they "changed to anything but what I had on. We had to gamble. Maybe it'll work, maybe it won't work." It didn't work and he pulled off early in the race. "I don't know if it was too hard; it was the construction of it. It wasn't for that track." The highpoint of the season came in the fourth round of the series and the second race in Italy at the Autodromo di Monza, a track not far from the team's headquarters and one which serves as their test facility. Edwards knows the limit there from having exceeded it. He crashed during a preseason test there, injuring the Ligaments Monza is a seires of straightaways connected by chicanes and, on top speed at least, Edwards was the fastest, topping out at better than 178 mph. Getting there has been the problem and in Monza he was only able to qualify seventh fastest, partially because he wasn't able to take full advantage of his qualifying tire in the late stages. "It's nice to know that my bike was quicker in a straight Line than anybody else's today," he said after practice. The race didn't start especially well, with both Edwards and teammate Nagai running off the track on the first lap and rejoining the race mid-pack. Patiently biding his time, and taking advantage of a calamity happening in front of him, he was able to -work his way up to a podium finish, his first of the year. '1 don't think anybody believed we would be on the podium this early in the season and I hope it's the first of Honda's Aaron Slight and Promotor Ducati's Troy Corser. Then World Champion Carl Fogarty motored his Ducati past and Edwards began backsliding to 10th place, his front tire rapidly losing grip. His tire choice was no better in the second race and he finished one spot worse, a position he lost by running into a gravel trap on the last lap. "I couldn't have riddden any harder. I gave 150 percent the whole race and I couldn't do any more. Nagai seemed to suffer less with his front tire and he was able to get away from me," Edwards said. Team Sporting Director Sarron said he '1ooked at both sets of tires after the second race and I know that they gave. it the best they could. I am just waiting for better days:' Those may come shortly. The next stop is th.e Salzburgring, a freeway with a couple of bends that isn't particularly hard on tires and favors top speed, though acceleration doesn't hurt. Edwards hasn't been~ there; the Ducatis have. After that is the U.S. round at Laguna Seca, a race track which Edwards comes to with immense knowledge, though Little success, and some reservation about the competitiveness of the Yamaha vs. the Ducati, a season-long thread. "The Ducati's got such an advantage," Edwards said earlier this year, before the Monza race where the FIM slapped a weight penalty on the twins, and lowered the weights on the fourcylinders, in an effort to even the playing field. "They're up to 99Occ, they've got the weight difference (which remains at five kilograms - 11 pounds even after the change), they can blow by us like we're standing still. But that's one of the things you've got to block out and go out there and ride your ass off and do the best you can:' Since the rule change there's been little change, partially because the Ducatis were running near the newly mandated weight already and it would be prohibitively expensive to pare down the fours. "I still don't think that the changes have gone quite far enough and further review will be necessary for 1996," Sarron said. "The handicap to the twins was not as great as it appeared on paper as very few of them were actually running at the minimum weight in the first three rounds." "All the four-eyLinder guys...we're all just going to every race getting better and better and better. We have to. If we don't we're back in 15th fighting with the 15th best Ducati," Edwards said. Last year Edwards was also fighting with Ducatis, mostly the ones belonging to eventual AMA Superbike Champion Troy Corser. He knows the World Superbike Duca tis are better than the Ferracci bikes, but he also knows that' his Yamaha is far more developed than his Vance & Hines mount. . "I'm not down on last year's bike," he said. "They did the best they could do with what parts that they were allowed and what they could get their hands on. With what they could get their hands on they did an awesome job. But the fact is that the motor budget here is practically unlimited to have the best engine you can possibly have. Last year, from race track to race track, we had to raise the rear, lower the front, lower the rear, raise the front drastically just to make the 'thing ridable." Though he didn't like to admit it, during the early part of this year he found he'd reverted to those patterns in times of desperation. Then came the tests at Suzuka which he left "feeling much more confident now for the rest of the season." The Yamaha has shown itself to have plenty of power. "Our problem at Misano and Donington was getting that power to the ground, which is very difficult," Sarron said. "We obviously did not find the best settings and tires to do this. However, it is made more difficult because we've zot two new riders on tracks they don't know. "It's true that we are disappointed, particularly after the strong start we made at Hockenheim, but we must not forget that this is a new team and we shall definitely make progress throughout the season," Sarron said. eN ~ -- 27

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