Tornado Warning: Grand Prix Of The Netherlands :: Official site of the Red Bull Indianapolis GP

Thursday, June 26, 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 Yamaha Tech 3. His next race is the Grand Prix of The Netherlands on Saturday, June 28 at Assen, The Netherlands.

The colorful Edwards will compete in the inaugural Red Bull Indianapolis GP on Sept. 12-14 at IMS along with fellow American MotoGP stars Nicky Hayden and John Hopkins, and MotoGP superstars Valentino Rossi, Casey Stoner, Dani Pedrosa and Jorge Lorenzo.

Another top-five finish at Donington, your fourth straight top five. What's been the secret behind your consistency?

I think our secret is that we've got a good setting. The secret to having good, consistent finishes is always having a good baseline setting. You roll up to the track, and everything just seems to kind of work from the get-go. You're not spending all weekend chasing your tail and having to adapt to different feels and different springs and geometry. We just show up, and everything seems to be working pretty good. That just lets you know we did everything we needed to do in the offseason. We did our job in the offseason. We built a good bike, and ready to roll. That's pretty much the secret, I think.

At Donington, it seemed to be another weekend where the bike fooled you on race day. You thought you had a good handle on it in practice and qualifying, and then the bike was tricky during the race. Is this a tough bike to set up?

There's a pretty simple explanation about Donington, but it's hard to understand it if you're not a racer. So I'm going to give it to you as easy as I can. Pretty much Friday, we had the same setting on the bike as we did the race, and Friday we were awesome. Top two, top three all day. And then it rained all day Saturday. Our rain setup, the theory is just completely different. We have a much longer bike, we got a lot softer springs, we got a lot more weight on the front to get the thing to turn. In the rain, you can't really brake as hard you want; you'll lose the front. So we have to change the bike a little bit to get some static weight just sitting on the front to turn in the rain. So then, spending all day on that, and then going back Sunday morning to the original setting, I was obviously still riding the bike like a rain setup. My weight was wrong; I wasn't braking like I should have been. And even in the warm-up, I came in complaining of handling issues. I couldn't get the front to stay down. We went back to the short bike and back to our Friday setup, and went out in the race and ran into the same issue. I thought: "Man, I don't know. I'm riding my butt off and just about to crash every corner." And slowly, lap by lap, a tenth faster, a tenth faster, a tenth faster, and then I figured it out. But by that time, those guys were pretty much gone. I just kind of figured out what I was doing wrong, and it just took me too many laps to adapt to it instead of adapting right away. But at the end of the day, the setup was awesome. The setup was perfect. Just myself, really. I've got myself to blame.

Are mixed conditions the biggest nightmare for any team or rider on a race weekend?

Well, it's not that bad if your bike is set up. In years past, we've always had a longer bike. We'd soften it up, and we'd go racing in the rain, dry, whatever. Soften it up for the rain, or stiffen it up in the dry. But because I finished second last year in the rain, we kind of went to that setting, which was last year's setting. I went pretty good in the rain; I couldn't complain. But our setting in the dry has evolved so much. As far as being a nightmare for a rider, not really. If your settings are very similar, it's no problem. But having that big of a jump from one setting to the next, rain or dry, you have to adapt, mentally and physically, the way you ride the bike.

What were your impressions of Ben Spies at Donington?

Yeah, I think he went well. And Donington is not an easy track. It's never been an easy track. It's got a few people's number. In those Craner Curves, they call it the Craner Club. He did a good job to stay out of that club his first time there. I was impressed. He came, he didn't get too crazy, he just thought he'd feel it out. I thought it was a good run, a good show, just to come and do it.

Assen is a track you really like. What is it about Assen that appeals to you?

I've won quite a few races here, Superbike days. I've got some good memories here, and I also have some bad memories here, from '06. It's just one of those tracks. The weather, you never know if it's rain or dry. You've got some wind. But I just seem to get along with the track. Obviously, I like the old track, before they messed it up. It had its own character. It had a lot of crown in the road, a lot of force in the corners pushing down on the bike, a lot of banked corners. Now they've kind of destroyed that character a little bit. But the fans are still here. It's still the Dutch TT.

When guys race at Indy, they say there's something about the place when you first walk in, that you can almost sense the ghosts, see the old cars racing in your mind there. Is there a similar feeling at a classic track like Assen?

Yeah, absolutely. In all honesty, there are a few tracks around the world, Monza in Italy is one of those places, I think Assen here is for sure one of those places … any place that's got a bit of history behind it. You see old remnants of the old track, old guardrails that are still left from 50 years ago, and it's pretty cool. I like the history. I've always loved the history about it.

You mentioned 2006 at Assen, when you went off track while leading with one corner to go while being chased by Nicky Hayden. Is that something that still bothers you today, or has it left your mind?

I'm not wired that way, to hold a grudge or to not let go of something. I'm probably the most forgiving guy on the planet. The most forgetful - that's for sure. You can ask my wife on that one. Yeah, it probably bugged me for a week. It was all right. That's racing, man. Kind of the way I looked at it was that I don't if I've ever had a last-lap crash ever in my entire career. I've always been the guy chasing the guy, and then maybe he crashes or pass him on the last lap and win the race. That always seemed to be what I was doing, where the other guy might get a little bit of too much of a handful and crash or lose the front. It had to come around, sooner or later. One out of I don't know how many races I've done in my career; I guess I can't be too pissed about that. I always try to look at the brighter side of it.

Describe a lap around Assen. What are the unique challenges?

One corner leads to the next and to the next. That's the only way to really describe it. You can't be running down the straight and think about the corner you're coming up to. Because you can brake deep. You can go way deeper than what we do to make the corner. Problem is, you might screw your momentum up for the next corner. So it's always a very fine line of braking and connecting the dots, I say. Connecting entry, apex and exit, and kind of making sure all that's right just to the lead to the next corner, and that corner just to lead to the next corner. As long as you connect the dots around this place and run it smooth and don't get too happy with the throttle, you can usually do a pretty good lap time.

But because you need to think ahead so much, is Assen a track where it's hard to regain your rhythm if you make a mistake?

Yeah. Once you kind of lose a little bit of momentum in one corner, it might affect you three corners down the back. It's the nature of the track.

We are entering Silly Season, where we're hearing rumors about you for next year. I know you have nothing to report yet. Is that a distraction for you, or are you flattered to receive the attention as a rider in demand for next season?

I've been overshadowed for so long with Valentino (Rossi), you know, he's obviously been developing the bike that he wanted. I think some people now are really starting to understand that this year's bike, he didn't have too much to do with. We've got four guys who can ride this bike and not just one, like the last three years. And I think most teams are starting to understand that I did most of the R&D. Not me, I shouldn't say me, but the team. And I was the guy testing the stuff. Giving it the go-ahead or put this swingarm with that chassis - the whole 9 yards. Michelin, as well. I don't think there's anybody out there that they trust as much as they trust me. So I think that plays a big role. My results, obviously, play a big role, and the fact we get them is good. But I think the whole experience and knowledge is another big factor that teams are looking for. They're looking for somebody to come in and kind of turn their program in a good direction.

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Thursday, June 26, 2008

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