The Official Blog of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway

Colin Edwards at IMS

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 2010 in “Tornado Warning.” It’s the third consecutive season in which Edwards will offer this exclusive insight for www.indianapolismotorspeedway.com.

Two-time World Superbike champion Edwards, 36, is in his eighth year of MotoGP competition, riding this season for Monster Yamaha Tech 3. Edwards and the rest of the MotoGP riders will continue the season Sunday, Aug. 29 at the Red Bull Indianapolis GP at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway (3 p.m. ET, Aug. 29, SPEED).

The colorful Edwards will compete in the third annual Red Bull Indianapolis GP on Aug. 27-29 at IMS along with fellow American MotoGP stars Nicky Hayden and Ben Spies, and MotoGP superstars Valentino Rossi, Casey Stoner, Dani Pedrosa and Jorge Lorenzo.

It seemed like it was a solid weekend at Brno. You added more front-end weight, a radical change, and that seemed to work.

It was such a good weekend. The result I was not happy with. Start from the beginning, yeah, we radically changed the front end. We put a lot more weight on the front. Man, I’m so happy with it. I felt so confident. At the same time, right after Laguna, all I started doing was riding the hell out of my bike and playing a bunch of tennis. I’ve not done it for so long and gotten away with it for so long … I shouldn’t say gotten away with it, but I’ve never had physical tiredness issues on a motorcycle. Where this year I started feeling a little bit of that. So I worked my butt off before Brno and felt really good on the bike, made the big change. We went out qualifying, put a solid qualifying together, and then we went to the race. Well, what had happened is there’s a particular piece, let’s say a piece that we use on the bike that helps for some kind of chatter. I can’t really tell you 100 percent what it is. It’s something we have on the bike that helps if we have any vibration or chatter. I had the bike set up perfect. I felt really good. Sunday morning came, and obviously we were going to test Monday. Our idea was to test one of these pieces for this vibration issue or chatter issue, or whatever. Sunday morning came, and it rained. We all went out in the rain. And then the Yamaha, the Japanese, were looking at the data from Saturday, and they said, “Let’s change this piece now. Let’s change this piece and just race with this new one because we know it’s going to be better. It’s going to be a lot more calm.” Reluctantly, honestly, I asked them, I’m like: “Are y’all sure? I don’t think it’s a good idea to change something like that on the bike before we go racing with no testing involved.” So anyways, we put the new piece on, went out in the race, and man, it was just a disaster. It felt like we went up about three spring rates in the rear. Front felt like it was just bobbing around. The bike had felt so good all weekend. The first couple of laps were just learning how to adapt, how to ride the thing. I wasn’t happy with it. I had lost it so many times that I could have just put it in the gravel if they wanted me to, but nobody wants that. I was kind of distraught. It was a completely different motorcycle than what I had been testing all weekend. So anyways, we got to looking at the map and the data, and sure enough, it wasn’t reacting the same as what I had set up. I told them, “My whole career starting from since I’ve been professional, you add up the amount of times that I’ve lost the front in one race, combine all them, I lost it double that in that race.” I’d lose the front, put it on the knee, pick it back up, go into the very next corner and lose the front again. So many times I should have been in the gravel trap. When you’re riding like that, you’re riding on pins and needles and eggshells and waiting for something to go wrong. Fortunately, that Bridgestone front is that good that it doesn’t really go away from you. It just tucks, but you can still kind of get it back.

If the bike was so good Friday and Saturday, why did they want to change it Sunday?

Well … how much time you got? (Laughter). It was a very bad call. Honestly, it was a very bad call. I think they had good intentions. I think the idea was to make some of the vibration a bit smoother, or whatever. The problem was, they did that. But it was so planted, it was so stuck to the ground the rear that I couldn’t get the thing to turn. I couldn’t get it to kind of pivot around. You go into a corner at full lean, you like to go with a pivot and play with it a little bit. But this thing was so stuck to the ground I’d try and pivot it, it would just fold the front over. Why do you do it? Obviously, they had an idea that it was going to give me more traction; it was going to be better in certain areas, and it was. It was too good in areas. I didn’t have the bike set up like that. I didn’t have the front set up for it with that rear. What basically happened is just the rear overpowered the front and just started folding the front everywhere.

You were really quick Monday in the test. When that happens, is there ever a feeling of “Cool, the bike felt great, but why didn’t it feel like this yesterday in the race?”

Well, I know why. We went back to our Saturday setting. I went out, and my fourth lap at 10 o’clock in the Monday morning was a (1:) 58.2. My fastest lap of the race was a (1:) 58.4. So then I wanted to test back-to-back this new piece that they put on the race. So we put the new piece on, four laps on the tires, the tires are still good, brand-new. I went out, and I did (1:) 58.8 and (1:) 59. This new piece. So it’s about five-, six-, seven-tenths slower, with this new piece. So I proved it to myself that that’s exactly what it was. The bike felt completely different. You live, and you learn. I knew better. Everybody knows better: Don’t make such a drastic change before a race. At least get warm-up on it and understand it. But anyways, it all went pear-shaped. But I felt so good this weekend. 100 percent, I knew I had Nicky covered. As close as I could stay with Valentino when he came by, if I had my original setup, I felt like I could have fought with him easy, no problem.

Did you do more testing or setup work on Monday to carry more of the load for Valentino? He was there testing, but Yamaha certainly isn’t going to give him the 2011 parts now that he’s going to Ducati.

I think it’s kind of me, too. They don’t know if I’m staying or if I might go ride something else. They didn’t just come over and start handing new shit out there at the test. It was all stuff we had. We just tested a couple of little front-end settings. Bridgestone rolled out a new front, more or less for next year. A little bit of a compound change or something. We tested a front tire that I felt was much better. Valentino was supposed to test it, and it started raining. I just happened to be in there talking with him, and the Bridgestone guy was there. And he (Valentino) said, “Man, I want to go test it.” And I said, “Ah, don’t worry about it; it’s better.” He said, “OK, I trust you.” All I did was just test that front tire, and it definitely seems like it’s making a step forward.

You’re always stoked about Indy because it’s a home race, one time zone away. But do you have even more anticipation because of the good early-weekend speed and the test at Brno?

Oh, hell, yeah. Hell, yeah. Absolutely. After that weekend we just had and getting out of that satellite pack, the Simoncellis and all the guys I seem to have been fighting with all year, trying to frickin’ make headway. Now our bike’s running a little bit better after Laguna; we’ve got our new little gadget. We got the front end working really good. I’m more than excited to go to Indy than I would have been a couple of weeks ago, for sure.

You’re not sure what you’re going to do next year. It’s been a tough season this year. What would a podium finish at Indy mean to you?

It would be awesome. It would be awesome. Shit, quite frankly, to get on the podium, period, this year is a feat in itself. I think to do it at Indy would definitely, it would be something special. I think if you look at the field and you look at the bikes, this year, man, it has got to one of the toughest, whew, in a long time. Just to break into the top five, top six, with all the good riders and factory bikes, this is one of the hardest years that I can think of.

But if you look at Indy, if you can detect one trend, it’s basically, “Stuff happens.” Nicky got on the podium two years in a row when he was struggling, and last year De Angelis finishes second. So if there’s a race where a wild card can be tossed into the deck, it’s this one.

I think a lot of that, honestly, has to do with the fact with that Nicky, a couple years ago, hometown, the rain, the hurricane, just shut your brain aside and go for a hometown win. It’s all with the age of the track. We’ve only been there two years, so nobody’s really laid claim to being an Indy guru, or however you want to put it. Everybody thinks they’re making strides every year, a little bit better, a little bit better. This year, obviously Jorge won last year, so let’s see what happens this year. He’s been damn near winning everything, so he’s going to be the strongest out there being that he won last year.

What is most unique about Indy? The two things you always hear are that it’s the only stadium track on the schedule and also about the different kinds of pavement on the track – the oval, old road course and new part of the road course.

Oh, man, I can’t really answer that for one or the other. I think it’s the whole. For me, a track like Indy is very much like Monza. There’s so much history that I think that is the biggest part of it for me. As far as the pavement change, yeah, there’s a few different pavements, but we have that throughout the world on different tracks. That’s not really an issue. Being inside a stadium, yeah, it’s the first. But it doesn’t feel like it. When you’re on the track, it feels like you’re just on a racetrack. I wouldn’t say that’s anything that’s going to throw you off. A lot of it is the history.