Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

INTERVIEW Colin Edwards II By Henny Ray Abrams Photos by Gold & Goose end a little time with Colin dwards II and it's impossible not to notice how much life he has in him. 1he slender 22-year-old Texan with the quick smile and crew cut has an . enthusiasm for life that's infectious. Whether he's wringing the neck of his motorcycle or kicking back with friends, his passion is palpable and always has been. After making a name for himself late in 1991 with an impressive professional debut in the AMA 250cc Grand Prix race on the Miami street circuit, where he • finished second to Jimmy Filice, Edwards spent the following year battling Kenny Roberts Jr. to take the 1992 250cc GP title. From there he spent two years on the Vance & Hines Yamaha Superbike, coming into his own late in the 1994 season with a series of wins beginning at Mid-Ohio. Noticing his continuously rapid ascent toward the end of the 1994 AMA Superbike season, Yamaha offered him the chance to spearhead its initial invasion of the World Superbike Championship. Edwards accepted the challenge enthusiastically and set off for Europe. The first year was something of a struggle. The team was new, the bike was old, and Edwards was going places he had never been. This year the team is tighter, the bike is a little better, and Edwards is more at home. Let's start with the difference between this year and last year. This year, obviously we don't have to learn the tracks; that's the biggest help. You know weowill have to learn Bmo, just like everybody else will have to learn it. The one good thing about it is we went and did some testing in Australia and Indonesia, really the only tracks that everybody else has been to that I haven't been to. But the track looks easy enough. It's got the chicane and the straightaways, so I don't think it'll be too much of a problem. That's really the main difference. Also, with tires, the tires are a lot better. They've just basically got more grip for longer. And they're developing some new stuff that's really coming along well. What was the bigger problem last year, the fronts or the rears? They fixed the front about midway through the year. They came up with an incredible front. It just knocked my socks off it had so much grip and it was so much better than the old one. And then the rear all last year was lacking durability and grip. In the two races I didn't go to is when they started to get it together. In my last race, at Assen, they started to get it together. (Anthony) Gobert won on it at Phillip Island, on Dunlop. This year they're really good. How has the machine improved? It's pretty close to the same. 1hey kind S ~ m of moved the power a little bit down in the powerband to where it's not so violent, but it's still probably the most violent bike out there, I would say. But it's not as bad as it was last year. And now with the power being better, we also got a new suspension link that we can really only use on certain tracks. We can't use it everywhere, because it won't let us use it everywhere. On the high-speed tracks it's got way too much movement. On the flat tracks, with no bumps, like Daytona, for instance, it worked great. But at some tracks where you've got some bumps and you've got lots of G's pushing down on the bike, it just moves a lot, moves around. Like at Misano we used the new link, we should have used the old link. 1he stuff that we tested on, we really went better on the old link. Donington we used the old link. At Donington we ran a four-speed transmission. Was it a six-speed gearbox and you were only using four? Yeah, we only used four. We had it to where I was using six. And I came in after the first practice and we just looked at the computer and the thing was just so violent. It wouldn't let me go anywhere without wheelying. So Firenze Fanali (Edwards' crew chief) and me and Taka Suzuki got together. You could see on the computer that I was shifting gears every two seconds. So we put it down to four gears and dropped like two and a half seconds from session to session. It did hurt us, though. It hurt us for sure because we couldn't get the acceleration out of the bike that we wanted because it was running so tall. But that's the only way we could even try to compete( geared so tall. Just don't shift it. Does it have enough power to do that? Not down low, and that's what really hurt us. Through the chicane and the hairpin... The hairpin, it was too tall. There was nothing there. And on the exit.is when it started to hit, so we really lost a lot of time there. I'd make up around the rest of the track what I'd lose there, but I could only do it for five or six laps when the tires were really good and then after that it was just a tenth, two-tenths a lap, and I just fell a little back. But I was happy with it. I shouldn't be happy. Misano and Don. ington last year I walked away with four points in both races and now I've got 37 points out of both races. So I'm definitely a lot happier. How much different is the team this year? It's a little bit different. Last year it was kind of like Taka Suzuki had the outright say-so. He said everything and Firenze and I would ask him, "Can we do this, can we do that." It's just a little bit different, because Firenze knows, he knows what he's doing. He worked with Eddie (Lawson) and Gohn) Kocinski. He knows what he's doing and I think it just took a year for him to work into that and learn the bike and now he's got just as much say-so as what we do to the bike as anybody. Last year it didn't appear that there was anyone person in charge. I think a big part of that was Christian Sarron. He brought a big name into the team and everybody was looking for him to do something. And Firenze, I feel, is the nicest guy in the whole world, would do anything to help you and he doesn't want to step on anybody's toes. I think, in a sense, Firenze, if anybody' s got a right to be cocky, it's Firenze. But he's not cocky. I think it was the cockiness of some other people. And that kind of made him step back and he was trying not to cause any waves with other people also and it just didn't work as well last year as it does this year. Did that start in testing over the winter? Yeah, really it did. It started over the winter. And also Taka Suzuki doesn't come to every race. He's sending Kobayashi to certain events and they're kind of trading off. It's more or less giving Kobayashi experience for the future and it's working out good because he's kind of new and more westernized. He's really into experimenting and doing a lot of things. He's not set in his ways because he doesn't have any ways. Of course, the biggest asset for the team this year is that we've got Brivio, Davide Brivio. He's managing the team and he works like a dog. Last year he wasn't the man in charge. Last year he took care of odds and ends. Now he's the man. He does everything. He takes care that everything gets done and if it doesn't get done, he insists. It always gets done. He's probably the biggest asset to the team this year, different from last year.

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