FEATURE
P58
COLIN EDWARDS' TEXAS TORNADO BOOT CAMP
Classroom instruction is quick and to the point so you can
get back to where you really learn: On the motorcycle.
the damn boat. Well there's no
chalkboard here. These guys
know that to learn you actually
have to do it. It's not that they
don't teach you, but they teach
you on the tracks and not in a
classroom. I keep getting chastised by this Merle Scherb dude
for not looking up the track far
enough, but after seeing him
ride… well, I'm all ears. He may
just be the fastest guy here, but
don't tell Colin and Joe I said
that.
I'm learning so much about riding a motorcycle. There's nothing
like one of these little TTRs with
the knobbies taken off to show
you what you're doing wrong and
what you're doing right. I was a
little rusty at first, but by the end
of this thing I'm pretty sure my inner Scotty Parker will rise to the
surface.
There are riders of all different
skill levels here and I'm making
all kinds of new friends. There's
even one lady who I don't think
even knew how to ride when she
got here and now she's cutting
laps all over the place. I can see
the rest of them are all getting
faster and I'm having fun helping them when I can. There are
these two funny Italian brothers
who are really cool and one of
them calls me Super Paul. Hoping that doesn't mean something
else in Italy.
Speaking of foreigners… you
know how I like to find that one
guy to focus on to get my com-
The big
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Merle Sch d instructor
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petitive juices flowing. Well, I
found him. He's one of Colin's
crewmembers and he's French.
His name is Florian and we all
call him Flo Joe because apparently when Colin met him he
couldn't pronounce Florian (remember, Colin's from Texas so
he probably didn't go to school
with many dudes named Florian).
You know I don't like to cuss, but
that little French bastard beat me
by .2 of a second the first day
of Superpole and it made me
toss and turn all night… It kinda
sucked that I started to get used
to getting beat by him – by fractions every day. But I sucked it
up hard on the final day and took
him down. I figured if dad could
win a World Championship and