Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

World Supel"bike Champion Colin Edwards possibly won a race or two more, but at the same time you have to keep it on two wheels and get some points. This year I just want to go out and give it 100 percent every race and go on and win. Q I know how these championships work out. I'm 25 points lacking, which I felt I should have got - hell I would have taken 20, 16, 13 - I would have taken any points in the second race at South Africa. But it's a team effort and when the bike goes wrong it goes wrong. We're just looking forward. How has marriage affected you? They say it takes half a second off your lap time. I got married at the end of 1999 and won the championship in 2000. My wife Alyssia and I have been together for getting on close to 10 years. We've only been married a year and a half of that, but we're just two peas in a pod. Same beliefs, same hometown, high school sweethearts, so what more could you ask for? She's just been a great support. A lot of people don't see behind the scenes and see what we have to do... the travelling and A By GORDON RITCHIE PHOTOS BY GOLD £, GOOSE T exan Colin Edwards will return home in a few weeks - for the first time with a big number one on his Castrol Honda RC51. Well, okay, it's not exactly home - but Monterey, California, is as close as the World Superbike Championship gets to the Lone Star State. And it's close enough for Edwards to call it home. He'll have friends and family at Laguna Seca - a rarity for a man who spends the majority of his time racing in Europe and beyond. He comes to Laguna Seca second in the World Championship, trailing Troy Bayliss by 43 points. His engine woes in South Africa cost him dearly, but he doesn't seem overly concerned about making up the ground on his Australian rival. The championship is certain to go to the bitter end, but you can count on the fact that Edwards will be there for the duration. A second straight World Superbike Championship? Perhaps so. And the races at Laguna Seca will go a long way toward determining the outcome of that title chase. Let's see what Edwards had to say about racing and life in the weeks leading up to the race. How does it feel to be World Champion, now that it's had a few months to sink in? It feels good, ya know, but now it's more a matter of basically realizing that that was last year. It was a lot of hard work, but now I'm getting on with the job and going about winning it again this year. ooes it make you feel different about yourself, the way you go about things? No. A lot of people have been going on about how it puts me under a lot more pressure, being World Champ and trying to keep the title. I don't know if I think differently from a lot of people, but I've been working 23 years for one goal and that was to win the World title, and to me the pressure is off - I've done it, I've accomplished my goal. From here on it's gravy, so I'm looking to go out and win races, and I know I can. Have you noticed a lot of change in people's attitude toward you now that you are World Champion? Yeah, a big change. But I'm just a normal dude - Colin from Texas - and a normal guy that uses the same shitter as everybody and puts my pants on one leg at a time. A lot of the time all I do is ride motorcycles a little better. That's it. A lot of people have a hard time getting around the fact that I am so approachable. I say what I think, I cuss at press conferences, and that's what I am. People want to know who you are so I don't tend to change anything. I just do what I do. Did any of the Honda guys try to make you change into a PR creature once you signed for them? In the beginning, when I got with Honda, I would slip up and say a few cuss words - but when I say cuss words, I mean that shit is about the worst thing I'm gonna say. They would say, "Well, Q A A 20 JULY 4,2001 • cue I e n e _ so you know, try not to cuss." This was like the first three or four months I was with them, and they finally realized, "Hey, that's just him, that's the way he is." Other than that, it's fine. Me and Honda get along great. Has it all been worth it, all the pain and injury - to become World Champion, and to continue on trying to win the next few? Oh, yeah, definitely. J've seen a few teammates go away, and that is part of racing. It only took once for me to get my head straight and say, I'd rather it happen when I was doing something I loved to do that while driving a car down the highway. Looking back at it I don't regret a moment. There are a couple of times, like last year, when I could have A Your title defense has not been made easy. A

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