VOL. 50 ISSUE 47 NOVEMBER 26, 2013
P63
talent when they come through
the boot, but you just don't
know. You don't know what their
mental state is when they get on
a bike here or if they're ready."
What's often seen as the best
solution to get more Americans
overseas is having an American
team. But, short of that, the
other one is having an American MotoGP rider to help mentor young riders and get them
overseas and achieve success
in Grand Prix racing.
In recent times, Kevin
Schwantz was the guy with
(Left) Colin Edwards doing what
he loves best –
popping wheelies.
(Above) Colin
Edwards and
Nicky Hayden –
the remaining two
Americans in the
premier class. Will
they be the last?
Tornado Boot Camp as many of
them show up as guest instructors. And come U.S. Grand Prix
time, a lot of the foreigners also
show up for fun at the camp. So
with a lot of the racing talent pool
coming through his camp, are
there any Americans who stand
out as having what it would take
to be successful in the MotoGP
series?
TO SEE THE
"JUSTAWESOME. ITFIGHT THAT HE [MARQUEZ]
HAS IS
MAKES YOU REMEMBER
BACK WHEN I FIRST STARTED AND THE FIGHT THAT
I HAD WHEN I WAS 20 ALSO.
"
"I would like to say yeah," Edwards answered. "I see them
at the boot camp… You know
everybody at the boot camp
comes out and has fun, but obviously you can tell when they've
got skills immediately. As soon
as Jorge [Lorenzo] and [Pol] Espargaro… these guys show up,
you're like okay. It's pretty easy to
tell whose fast, but I mean that's
at boot camp.
"Ricky Cardus is probably our
fastest guest instructor that's
ever been there. I mean he mops
the floor with Lorenzo. He's really
fast. But he's not doing so much
here in Moto2. When you look at
results like that, he's fast there
but here [Moto2]… I don't know.
So it's easy to say the guy's got
that role. But with the Circuit of
The Americas fallout, the World
Champion's relationship with the
series suffered a lot of damage
and there is no one at the moment to fill that void. Was this a
role that Edwards saw himself
taking on in the future?
"Yeah. I'm actually talking
with somebody right now about
something very similar to that,"
he answered. "You know bringing some young kids up. I remember when I was in AMA, I
was like, 'Oh, man these guys
are so fast.' And then I remember going to World Superbike
and it was like, 'holy s*&t, these
guys are really fast.' And then
when you get to Grand Prix, it's
like, 'Jesus Christ everybody's so
