Thursday, November 5, 2009
Colin Edwards, a Houston native nicknamed "The Texas Tornado," will offer candid insight about his performance, competitors and life in the exciting world of MotoGP motorcycle racing before every event in 2009 in "Tornado Warning."
Two-time World Superbike champion Edwards, 35, is in his seventh year of MotoGP competition, riding this season for Monster Yamaha Tech 3. He is sixth in the season standings after 16 races this season and will compete with the rest of the MotoGP grid at the season-ending Grand Prix of Valencia on Nov. 6-8 at Valencia, Spain.
The colorful Edwards finished fifth in the second annual Red Bull Indianapolis GP on Aug. 28-30 at IMS, racing along with fellow American MotoGP star Nicky Hayden, and MotoGP superstars Valentino Rossi, Dani Pedrosa and Jorge Lorenzo.
A tough weekend at Sepang, from the time you rolled off the truck to the time you packed up and left. What happened?
Centennial Era Twill Flags Jacket
Centennial Era Flags Jacket. Twill And Embroidery.
Dude, it was just (crap). The whole weekend. You do all the testing in the winter, in February and March. And after you run around after six days or whatever and get the bike sorted out, throughout the year you make developments. You find a front-end setting that seems to be different, better feel or whichever. As it happened, after Australia, which I had some front-end issues, feeling issues, it was just like, "OK, go back to what we ran at Malaysia (preseason test), the setting we ended off." I had a pretty good race simulation there in February. Let's go back to that setting, which is not exactly what I've been running all year. But let's just go there, and when we get to the times we want to get to, then we can make changes. And we pretty much did that. We did make small changes. Kind of came back to where we are now. But man, I got behind Pedrosa, and he pulled 15 bike lengths on me down the straight. So it wasn't that much fun.
Are you guys out of engines? Have you run through your five sealed engines since Brno, and you're just running what you have? Is it a horsepower issue?
There was a major, major horsepower issue going on. This has been an ongoing thing since Brno, since we had this engine thing. And if you look at my results, they haven't been really worth a (crap) since Brno. Before that, everything was pretty even, I would say. I could actually pass somebody if I wanted to. Now with these new regulations, they've obviously throttle back a little bit. But Malaysia, with the stops and starts and the way that track is. Gearing, as well. Whenever we tested there for gearing, we were using a lot of torque coming out of the corners. Now we don't have any torque. So we had to gear it a lot shorter. This just kind of screwed the whole process up.
Will the team be able to plan better next year for these engine regulations? Will they be in place all year next year? Sounds like this new rule at Brno caught people off guard.
I think it's horse(crap). The whole thing is, we're at the pinnacle of the sport. We're at the cutting edge of motorcycle racing and electronics and engines, with technology. And then they want to limit us on engines, which everybody agreed to, which I don't understand. Everybody agreed to it, all the manufacturers, and now we're suffering. And I think we were caught a little bit off guard. I don't know what Yamaha calls it, cross-plane firing order or whatever the hell it is. It's a lot of stress on components. To get it to go three races like next year, they've got their work cut out for them.
Valencia is a lot different than Sepang. Tight, twisty, not a lot of long straights into hairpins. That should help you, right?
Yeah, it should be good. Who knows what engine? I don't know what we've got left or what we're going to run. We show up every weekend, and we're always kind of running a little bit different or trying to conserve an engine. We're at the last race, so whatever we have, it seems like we should just run it until it blows up, in my opinion. We'll see what we come out with. We don't have any more races after this, so maybe we can get something a little bit different. I don't' know.
Just as long as it doesn't catch on fire like the Aprilia. (Edwards' Aprilia caught on fire at speed in an infamous incident in his rookie season in 2003.)
Yeah, as long as it doesn't catch on fire, man, we're golden.
What are the special characteristics of Valencia?
First things first is you've just got to be real careful with the right side of the tire. It's very easy to roll here and just think everything is good. But that right side, because it's not until you really get to the fourth corner where you've got a right-hander. But you don't generate a lot of heat on the right side here. From my knowledge, I think we're using pretty much the same rubber across the whole tire here. I don't know. That takes a little bit of time. After that, you've got a couple start-stops, a little back straightaway, you've got a pretty tight corner onto the front straightaway. But for the most part, the little infield section is just about flowing, carrying momentum."
Are you counting points in your effort to catch Andrea Dovizioso in fifth? Do you do the math in advance, or do you just go with the flow?
Of course, you've got to do the math. This is the whole motivation factor that keeps you rolling. I'd like to get five more points than him and get fifth place. That would be fantastic. At the end of the day, we just have to buckle down and frickin' ride our ass off.
How do you feel at the end of this season compared to your other six seasons in MotoGP?
I'm getting older, so I'd say I'm getting more tired. The season as a whole, even though there was only podium this year, in years past I've had two, three or however many podiums, but it wasn't a bad year. I felt we were consistent. We were consistently up there. After Brno, we've had a big struggle going. But we've got one more race to turn it around. On a whole, this year, I don't know about a success, but it was probably as good as we could do, being the top satellite bike. I'm pretty happy with it.
If you could finish the season at one circuit, where would it be?
Valencia, Spain. It is what it is. I've never thought about that. It's just as good a place as any. It's a good track. The fans here are awesome. Obviously, the racing over here is in everybody's heart. So it's a good place to finish it.
I saw pictures last week of Ben Spies dressed as a pimp for Halloween. He went to party with Jamie and Rachel Hacking. What did you dress as for Halloween this year?
Dude, Halloween is all about the kids. And if you don't have kids, then you obviously do whatever, go to Halloween parties, which we've obviously done in years past. Had some great costumes over the years. But this year I was simply, I don't know what I was. I was like a frickin' covered ghoul-monster with red, lit-up eyes. Kids had a haunted house. One of my friends built a haunted house. All we did was just roll around the corner and scare the (crap) out of kids. It was quite entertaining.
Share:
| Indianapolis Motor Speedway Talkback | Post Comment |
|
|
|