Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

WORLD SUPERBIKE PREVIEW Interview: Colin Edwards /I I By Hanny Ray Abrams Photos by Gold & Goose n 26 f yo u're planning on watching Colin Edwards II rae" at the American round of the World Superbike cha mp io ns hip at Lagu na Seca , yo u sh ould pl an o n arriving ear ly. Very early. By lunch time on Friday, he may be, like you, just another interested spectator - th ough o n" with a slightly higher profile. Edward s will be tr yin g to ride at Laguna Seca - one of the most physically. demanding and hardest - bra kin g ra ce tracks in the world - with a healin g, but still broken, right wrist. Both the radius and ulna bones (the two ma jor bones in the forea rm ) wer e broken at the top of the w r ist w hen h e w a s ra m med by French Yamaha rider Jean-Philippe Ruggia in a senseless acci dent durin g th e first free-practice sessi on at Mon za, the Italian round of the World Superbike Cham pions hip. The doctors in th e Clinica Mobile, the traveling medicai cen ter, told him he'd be as good as new 15 days after the June 20 incident. "They usually say th at for iron men wh o are w antin g to ge t o u t o n th e track," Edwards says, somewhat skeptically. "We' re not reall y in the cham pionship, but we're looking for Suzuka (8H our) r ight n ow . Tha t's o ur main priority." Ev e n b e fo r e th e se aso n s tarted, defending the Su zuka B-Hour crown which he won last yea r was probably this year's most important assignment, given its status as the most prestigious motorcycle race in th e wo rld. With his cha nces of winning the superbike title go ne, it makes it eve n more paramount ~ if such a thin g is possib le. "The most important thing to come ri ght now is Suz uka, and th ey ' ve a lread y told me tha t if it's not 100 percent, th ey really could n' t care less if I rode," Edwards said. "(Laguna is) not a good place to be having a hurt wrist, that's for sure" . For a gu y with a broken wrist . an antique motorcycle, and the meat of a long season s till ah ead, Colin Edwards II is rema rkably upbeat. He ha s confidence in himself, confidence in the team, and confidence tha t he 's ma kin g th e righ t d ecisio ns. Though he hasn 't wo n a leg of th e World Superbike Cha mpions h ip ye t, he's co me close eno ugh to kn ow th at he can - and has earned the respect of his com petitors. Some measur e of his o ptimis m can be credi ted to how far he and the team have come i n a s ho r t tim e . H is fi rs t World Su perbike season in 1995 wa s plagued by a Tower-of-Babel syndrome. The team was a po lyglot mess: no direction, less res ults. New to the circuit, Ed wa rds was in no position to make demands. He was alo ng for the rid". The improvemen t in 1996 wa s substan tial. More power was put in fewe r hands, and th e team - a nd Ed wards - had a year's more experience and faith . He finished the y"ar in fifth, though the season never ended, because almo st immediately he embarked on a rigorous off-season testing program. . The 23-year-old Texan with the quick smile and even quicker wit began his third year on th e world stag" with high hopes, an improved m ach ine, and the bes t teammate he'd ever had - Scott Russell. Testing had been both efficient and promising, and he credited that to being able to share th e workload with Russell. "It's a w esome," he replied wh en asked about having th e former World and AMA Superbike Champion a s a teammate. H can' t explain . I mean , I n when I cam e into this and learned that Scott was go ing to rid e, I thou ght, 'F- , that's great, I can't lose!' It's been good, especially in testing . When we go to test, he test s stuff, I test stuff, we ge t twi ce th e wor k done in half the time. Where we have gai ned considerably is that our bikes are pretty damn close, set-u pwise. There may be a millimeter here or there, b ut nothing se rious ly different. What we've gained considerably is front-fork specs and shock specs, We've been able to go th rou gh quite a lo t of shock and fork specs to com e up wi th the same package." . An d th e y' v e been able to do it despite hav e different riding sty les. "I think his sty le is so mewhat mo re of a 500, into the comer really hot, tum it, squa re it, and go," Edwards explains. "My sty le is still kind of a 250-Superbike m ix. I like to ge t set up for th e comer, carry the corner speed, and turn it at the end and squirt it out of there, Our styles are definit ely differ ent, but how mu ch of a differen ce th a t m ak es to th e bike se t-u p that we' ve found is pr etty minimal." The d ifference in th e ir results has also been slight, thou gh neither has bee n able to win a race. Edwards cam e closest in the second race of the season-opener in Phillip Island, Au str alia . With two laps to go , he had a second on the field . Then his tire went a way. His closest friend o n th e circuit, Castrol Honda's Aaron Sligh t, used the draft to deny him his first victory. "After th e last corner, he just go t a good tow on me and came right around me and bea t me by three-thousandths of a seco nd," Edwa rds rem emb ers though, officially, it was 0.033 of a seco n d . N omalter. Though h e lost, he knew he could win. After the fi rst four ra ces, Edwa rds ha d a two-poin t lead o ver Russell - a gap which was gone when Edwards was knocked out of Monza, Even before he was taken out of the Italian race and his cha nceSfor success at Laguna Seca were greally diminished , Edwards , kn ew that he di d n't haw th e tools to get the job done. Even th e most casual observer can see that he and Russell have probably th e fourth-best bike, and it could drop a peg if th e Suzu ki contin ues to improve. The Ca strol Honda RC45 s of John Kocinski and Aaron Slight lead th e list , according to Ed wa rds . " Ba r Qone, th ey ' ve g ot the b est machine o u t the re," he says. "Engine wis e, it's got acceleration and i t's got top e nd. It handles good; i t d oesn't handle a t every track, but it handl es 75 percent o f th em reall y well. It d oesn't seem to handle somewhere like Brands Hatch, a tigh t kind of really bumpy track - it d oesn't seem to work so well ther e, What they lack in suspension, they gain in mo tor . That's just the way thei r bike is . Significantly better than last year. "Th e Du catis, unless I'm im agining thi ngs , se em to have s lowed d own ..} think be cause · thi s is my o pi nion, of course - but my own opin ion 'is that ~t cost so much last yea r to bring 15 damn motors to a race meeting and blow one up every 100 kilo me ters (62 miles ) that they finally decided, 'We've go t to d o som ethi ng or we ' re losing shilloads of money: It's no t really a case of mon"y, bu t just a lot of wor k. To me, unless we made a gia nt leap forward, wh ich I really d on't th ink we did , th ey s lowed down. 1 wo uld say top end seems to be ther e, but the acceleration they used to ha ve doesn 't seem to be quite what it was. I mean, it's still good. Don 't ge t me wrong. But the Honda's better." ' To illustrate his point, Edward s points out that former World Champion Carl Fogarty ha s only won two of H) races. "T ha t's pretty mild for h im," Edwards says. Th e Kaw asaki Germa ny-run ZX7~. ridden by Si mo n Crafar and Aki r.. Yanagawa, ar e also ahead of the facto ry Yamahas. "They made th e biggest jump fro m last yea r to thi s year," Edwards sai~ . "Their motor is almost identical to ours.

• Cover