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RACER TEST' C~lin Edwards II's Yamaha YZF750
By Alan Cathcart
Photos by Emilio Jimenez
amaha would have to be pleased
with Colin Edwards II's 1996
season - even if his long-awaited
first World Superbike race victory didn't quite come just yet.
Still, the factory's Texan works rider
obtained potent consolation by teaming
with Noriyuki Haga on the works
YZF750 to win what for any Japanese
manufacturer is the Big Race, the Suzuka 8-Hour, before grabbing rostrum finishes in each of the last four races of the
1996 World Superbike series, en route to
fifth place in the final points table.
othing underlined the relentless
improvement of what is now essentially
a 10-year-old motorcycle better than
Colin's performance in the final round
of the '96 series at Phillip Island.
On his first racing visit to the Australian seaside circuit (Yamaha withdrew from the '95 race after the tragic
death of Yasutomo agai at Assen),
Edwards stunned the array of Australian World Superbike riding talent by
qualifying on pole position, then
seemed set to at last clinch that longawaited debut victory in race one, leading all the way until the last couple of
laps before Awesome Anthony go-geed
past him to steal the win.
Race two might still have been
Colin's, though - until he hit a seagull
on the second lap, yet amazingly still
finished third in spite of a broken screen
and with half his helmet visor obscured
by blood and feathers.
With a pole, two seconds and two
thirds in the final two '96 rounds, you'd
have to say the 22-year-old Americanborn son of his Aussie dad Colin I must
