Thursday, October 16, 2008
Colin Edwards, a Houston native nicknamed "The Texas Tornado," will offer candid insight before every MotoGP event in 2008 about the characteristics of the upcoming circuit, his tactics and possible motorcycle setup for the weekend, the personalities and rivalries of the exciting world of MotoGP, and personal anecdotes about the region where each event takes place in "Tornado Warning."
Two-time World Superbike champion Edwards, 34, is in his sixth year of MotoGP competition, riding this season for Tech 3 Yamaha. His next race is the Malaysian Grand Prix on Sunday, Oct. 19 at the Sepang International Circuit.
The colorful Edwards competed in the inaugural Red Bull Indianapolis GP on Sept. 14 at IMS along with fellow American stars Nicky Hayden, John Hopkins and Ben Spies, and MotoGP superstars Valentino Rossi, Casey Stoner and Dani Pedrosa.
Another top-10 finish at Australia. I know you wanted more but how did the race unfold?
I've had good results there, but not in Grand Prix. I don't know if I'm doing something wrong or what's happening. It's just never seem to be up there. Top five, five, six, seven, you know. Come race time, as soon as we got started, I was ready for everybody to take off. That place is pretty funny. You catch the draft, and you can usually go half-second quicker than normal just by using the draft. And I couldn't stay with anybody off the corner. I couldn't stay with them; I couldn't carry the corner speeds they were carrying.
Was it the wheelspin problem again coming off the corners?
Nobody had great traction. But it just seemed, I don't know, man, I couldn't carry the corner speed. I couldn't carry the momentum that I wanted to. That was probably what was really hurting me. If you carry the momentum, then you've got that much more coming out. You still spin, but you're already 2, 3 kilometers faster. It just seemed I couldn't carry the corner speed I wanted to.
Was it a tire issue or a setup issue?
I don't know. I'm thinking it was a setup thing. We made a little, small adjustment to the bike just before we went out, added a little preload to the front. You add preload to the front to stiffen it up a bit. But I felt like I was chasing a little bit in warm-up. It made that little area feel better, but did it hurt us mid-corner? Possibly. I don't know. That's something we're just working out. It's been weird. It's been really weird.
Were you and James (Toseland) running really different setups, or were they close?
Well, I think we were pretty close, actually. I don't know exactly what he was running. As far as offset, a little bit shorter than mine toward the front. I think everything else was pretty much similar.
He ran well in Australia for a long time.
Yeah, he did, man. He rode a good race. I think he may have had a harder spring in the rear. We struggled with grip all weekend, so we kept going softer and softer. Maybe we went too soft and just didn't get enough push on the tire. But it seemed to work with one tire, and other ones not so great. I don't know; it was a confusing race. I finished that race riding my ass off and confused to why I was 27 seconds behind the leader. I was like, "Man, this is weird."
It was a good race, though. Typical Phillip Island. Plenty of battles up and down the field.
Yeah. I just would have liked to have been involved in the battle at the front.
Phillip Island was your 100th Grand Prix in MotoGP. Was that a significant milestone for you or just another race?
Well, it's weird; I didn't know until Sunday morning. I had no idea. Then I came in after warm-up, and they had some cowboy there with a saddle on my bike, and they were taking pictures, happy 100th Grand Prix, or something like that. I was like, "Oh, yeah, has it been 100 Grand Prixs? I guess it has." I honestly was unaware of it. It was cool. I don't know how you're supposed to feel after 100 Grand Prixs, but I'm just happy to be around for it.
Malaysia, the next Grand Prix. Power is very important there because of the long straights, isn't it?
Yeah, you need some good power. You need good grunt off the corners to get on those straightaways. But at the same time, Yamaha has always been good there as far as carrying momentum and a high corner speed bike. As far as my results, it doesn't seem like we've ever had a great one there. And the way the end of this year is going, it's look grim, to be honest. We're going there with high hopes. I know what we did there in testing. Testing was good. What we're actually going to do is that we're pretty much light years away from where we were at testing as far as bike length, springs, offsets; everything is completely different now. We're going to put the bike to exactly the way it was at the test. We know what times we did then, and the times were good then. Maybe we lost track a little bit of bike settings, so we're going to go back to that and start on that. If that doesn't really work out like we want, then we can always go to what we have now. So we'll figure all that out Friday in the two hours we got then and go from there.
Is the weather at Sepang more of a factor than at other tracks because rain can come at an instant and then return to sun?
Yeah. Malaysia has always been the way it is. You just show up, and nine times out of 10, we get lucky: The rain storms usually come 4 o'clock, 5 o'clock in the afternoon. We usually get lucky and get all the day's work done and then it will come down rain. But a couple of years ago, it flooded us out completely in qualifying. You never know. You can look at the forecast for Kuala Lumpur, and it will say thundershowers every day. But honestly, those thundershowers don't happen until the afternoon.
Long flight, though. Is this the longest flight of the year?
Oh, yeah. Well, from Australia, door to door was 24 hours. But Kuala Lumpur, it's up in the 28-hour range from door to door.
How do you stay sane being on a plane for that long?
You know, that's a good question. I think I might have lost my marbles a few times. Between movies and PSP, PlayStation thing, and reading some books and magazines … I don't know, that's part of it.
How long does it take your body to adjust to the big time change and the long travel?
It's weird. Going to Japan or to Malaysia or to Australia, traveling west that way, that really doesn't seem to hurt me too bad. But coming back from there to here, hell, I'm still getting up. I've been going to bed at 9 p.m., and I wake up at 12, 1, stay up for two, three hours and go back to bed for another three hours. It's hard to adjust coming back. But I don't really have any trouble going there. I don't know why. Maybe it's just the way the flight schedule is. You get a bit of sleep on the way out, and then by the time you get there, you're ready to go. It just seems like it flows.
You hear about F1 teams starting to work on next year's car during the previous season. Do you do the same thing in MotoGP? Are you working on stuff for '09?
Valentino was supposed to test the (2009) bike after Motegi, but it rained. He didn't get a chance to ride. I know the test riders are already testing. I know some of the differences in the new bike. Some of the changes. I don't think I'll get to ride it until maybe a few laps in Jerez at the end of November, but probably not until next year. If they want another opinion on it, then I might ride it in Jerez. If they don't need another opinion, I'll ride it next January.
Are the teams that only are on Michelin scrambling now with the late change to one tire next season, considering Bridgestone is the only company that bid for the contract? It's different for Yamaha, at least, because Valentino was on Bridgestone this year.
You can say that we have information because of Valentino, but honestly, I don't know anybody who can ride Valentino's tire. They're finding that out at Bridgestone right now, as well. Some of the guys thought they'd be smart at the beginning of the year and say, "Just give me whatever tire Valentino is running" if they can't find a tire come race time. And they're sucking in the race. I've been there and done that with Michelin with him. I can't run his tires. I don't know. Depending on how the development goes or how this new rule works, if we have to use the same or we've got different constructions for different bikes. Sure, we're going to have the same rubber, let's say three or four different picks of rubber. But construction, we might have to do something as far as each bike, kind of tailors to a particular construction or a rider. We'll have to see how all the terms get written down as far making it equal across the board.
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