Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

Australia the Repsol riders, Hayden and Barros , were the only o nes with the new RC-21 I V. the new chassis, new sw ingarm, new linkage. And for one lap it was incre dible. Hayden set the fastest time in Malaysia. But Edwards not iced something. He noticed that after 10 to 12 laps on a race tire, Hayden was a second, second and a half slower than the Te lefonica Hond as. And he knew in due time that the parts woul d filter down to the satel lite teams, and he wasn 't sure that was a good thing. On the older machinery, Edward s wen t to Austra lia and ran quick laps, one afte r another, the last lap not much different fro m the first. There were fast honors days. Edwards saw in Australia what he 'd seen in Malaysia; afte r 24 laps the Rep sol riders were strugg ling. No current GP rider knows more about tires than Colin Edwards . As the favored son of Michelin, he 's put mo re time into tire developme nt than any othe r rider. Th e 5-4 Miche lin that the GP world first saw in 200 2, Edwards was developing in 1998 . What Edwards noti ce d in Malaysia and Australia was tha t the Hond a was putti ng too much force into the rear tire and that when it got old, it couldn't handle it. Testing moved to Barcelon a, and now most eve ryone had mo st of the 2004 machinery. The weather was dodgy, and the te ams didn't get the fullmeasure of the newest and best. Even so, Edwards saw that the 2003 bike may not have be en fast for one fast lap, but it was friendlier on tires. The 2004 machine was abusive to tires . "The difference on ou r bike wh en the tires are good to when the tires are bad is two seconds, easy two seconds, if not mo re ," Edwards said. 'A nd that's not right. Unde rstand a tire goe s off a bit and half a second or a second, but this is just so big." What we nt right at Yamaha, and what wen t wr ong at Ho nda? Edwards has a theory. "Eve rything that's done to that Yamaha is from Valentino [Rossi)," he says. 'J\s for the RC211 V. at the moment, we 're not exactly sure who it's from from Honda, from [Alex) Barro s or Nicky [Hayden) . It' s from one of them tw o, but we 're not re al sure wh ere it' s comi ng from . What we do know is that it's not changing. And maybe for that reason , it needs to be changed." Hayde n would be the first to admit that he doesn't have the ex perie nce to de velop a Grand Prix machine. Barro s might not adm it it, but he 's been around a long time and has never won a t itle , and th at certai nly says someth ing about his develop ment and communication abilities. Hayden doesn't deny tha t he needs to refine his th rottle control. "Definite ly it's hard to get the powe r down smoo th," he said. "That's always been o ne of my deals , sometimes I'm too aggres sive on the thr ottle." Aggression on the Honda isn't rewarded , it' s pun ished. "Y u'd be amazed how easy the th ing wou ld spin o up if you really wanted to ," Hayden said. Michelin is the key to the Honda-Yamaha equation. The domin ant French tire company brought a wider tire w ith a different profile to the first Australas ian tests and another one to the first race at Welkom, in South Africa. The tire was invented fo r the eminently adaptable Yamaha. "Y amaha fixe d the bike, w hich they can; they ca n www.cyclenews.com move rake , tra il, pivot, engine . You name it, they can change it," Edwards says. He would have been happy to stick with the smaller rea r. "The times wouldn't be as fast as wha t we have now, but we allwould've bee n in the same boat ," Edwards said. Instead, the re was a snow ball effect . All of the data that Hond a had collected prior to the big tire was wo rt hless. "Everythi ng befo re the first race, wad it up th row it away. It's all small-tire stuff," he said. Edwards might have had a different start to the year but for Miche lin's dec ision not to race the older, smaller tires at all. "The big tire doe sn't turn on the same radius on our bike," he said. "The way it's set up, it' s set up for the other tire. Th e contact patch is mo ved . So it doesn't t urn on the same radius as the front. So it's just a geom etry thing. You have to figure out how to get the fron t and rear turning on the same arc. "We had everything wo rking perfect, and now they've come up w ith something that's got more side grip . That was the 5-4 - more side grip, but you can't f&#%ing use it." Hayden's reac tio n was the polar opposite of Edwards'. "T he fat tire was a lot better for me, just a lot mo re grip," he said. "I can't say it he lped me because it just helped everybody. It's not that big a differenc e . When we first tried it, som e people didn't like it. Stra ight away I liked it better. It's not so differen t, really. For me, that new tire just improved grip, improved a lot ." The fix for Edwards was a smaller rim, the 6.00 down from 6.25 inches. Edwards knew that the big tire was pushing the front . It wouldn't turn, and it chattere d. The smalle r rim was a new lease on life. The contact patch is decreased; the bike turn s. " I'm seeing the back side of the cur b that I hadn't seen in four races ," Edwards said. "T he biggest mistake is, I co uldn't get to the apex of the corner, so then what do you do? You turn it early. All that does is push it mo re beca use you 're on that bigge r part earlier. So I'm out the re trying to figure this shit out w hile racing - a lot's going on . Co me this morning [Sunday morning at Ca talunya) with the decreased contact patch , I'm like 'Damn, the front is grea t; this is awesome. Everything feels awesome .''' Edwards said the size of the rim doesn't matter as much as wh at it does . The downside is that what you gain from being able to turn , you lose in acce leration because you don 't have the con tact patch . "What wo rks for me, as a rider, I need the front confidenc e," he said. "Either you get traction and you have no co nfi dence in the front, or you have front confidence and no tra ction. I'll take the front any day of the wee k." Wh en will Hond a make a change ? Some think it will come at the Czech Grand Prix at Brno after the summ e r bre ak. Rossi's bike dramatically imp roved at last year 's Brno race, though it was only the e ngine. "Ho nda had neve r bee n gre at at chassis," Edwards said. "We know that from years and years past. They hit this one right because of Vale ntino . Now they do n't have Valentino; now they have to choo se . In my opinio n, Sere 's [Gibernau) at the top of the championship. Sete, if he wants the burden, he needs to fix it, and that's just the way it is - becau se the bike is not right. You 're con stantly batt ling yourself against the bike. holding the chatter or trying to weight it or not weight. You're managing time. You're not going fast; you're not nat o ut. You're managing chatter time and tra ction time , and you 're trying to put it all togethe r. That's not how you're supposed to race ." eN CYCLE NEWS • JUNE 30, 2004 37

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