[sportrider - latest stories] - Colin Edwards Tops CRT Class in Qatar

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Colin Edwards Tops CRT Class in Qatar

NGM Mobile Forward Racing Texan fastest of nine CRT bikes in season-opener.It wasn’t surprising that Repsol Honda’s Casey Stoner had a low opinion of the CRT set. But what about one of their own?

“F---ing axe murderers behind me,� the always colorful Colin Edwards said after finishing top CRT in the Qatar GP.

Edwards gave legitimacy to the class when he signed on to race the NGM Mobile Forward Racing BMW-Suter. That he was part of the class, along with fellow MotoGP veteran Randy de Puniet, gave rise to the hope that the sub-set of the premier class in road racing wouldn’t be an embarrassment. But absent those two, most of the other seven CRT riders had precious little experience and in Qatar it showed.

“I mean, the speed deficit in the straight is just huge,� Stoner said after qualifying second to Yamaha's Jorge Lorenzo. “You’re coming at ‘em and all of a sudden you’re just like, aah, last second you have to pull out because you just don’t realize they’re going nowhere. And half the Moto2 grid’s just about as quick as what they are, considering they’re a long way down on horsepower. It’s pretty much as I thought.�

“I knew it was going to be Moto2 guys, old Moto2 or Supersport guys,� Edwards said after chasing fellow Texan Ben Spies to the finish en route to 12th. “I knew Turn 1 everyone was going to try and be a hero and not really understand how we roll. Know what I’m saying? And I went into 1 and somebody-I would think it was (Aleix) Espargaro and I knew he was f---ing going to do it-and he come up and stuffed the hell out of me and moved me out and everybody else kind of accordioned and it’s just stupid. He knows I’d kick his ass with my eyes closed around here anyways, so what’s the point?�

Edwards was certainly the faster riding in qualifying, when he was 13th, first CRT and .831 sec. behind Valentino Rossi. Espargaro was two spots down in a session that included crashes by a trio of CRT riders, Mattia Pasini, James Ellison, and de Puniet, and only one rider of prototypes, Yamaha’s Spies. In the race, Espargaro finished 28 secs. behind Edwards in 15th on the Power Electronics Aspar ART. The ART wasn’t as fast on top speed as the BMW-Suter, the fastest of the CRTs, fast being a relative term. Edwards’ top speed was 9 mph down to the slowest prototype in the race, the Yamaha YZR-M1 of race winner Jorge Lorenzo. To the fastest bike, the Ducati Marlboro Desmosedici GP12 of Valentino Rossi, the BMW-Suter was 14.5 mph slower through the speed traps.

Edwards has repeatedly insisted that the BMW-Suter is a work in progress and will be for the rest of the year. During pre-season testing, and again in Qatar, the two-time World Superbike champion has ventured into chassis settings he’d never considered. It was one of those experiments that led to a vast improvement in the motorcycle.

“We made a big change from Thursday to Friday,� Edwards said, because he, “couldn’t keep the front end on the ground, just chatter, chatter, chatter. So we decided, let’s theoretically do something I’ve never in the realm that I’m in. I’ve never been in this realm of fork springs, it’s a lot harder that what I used, ever.� Rather than take weight off the front end to reduce chatter, an Ohlins technician recommended placing more weight on the front by putting a “frickin’ superhard spring in the front that I’ve never even thought about using. My average last year was 9.5, 9.6 front spring and now it’s 10.2. That’s what we’ve got to have, obviously, with this chassis. It’s not screwing up the front tire. It’s keeping the front tire on the ground.�

Ohlins is one of a number of conventional components that the BMW-Suter uses. Not so for electronics. The team is the only one in the paddock using electronics by Bosch, a company with no experience at this level. The technicians came from the car side and had a steep learning curve to when they entered the two wheel world. Still, there are events that the electronics can’t handle.

On lap 14 of 22 Edwards flicked the bike hard in the turn three kink and the electronics didn’t compute. The engine burbled, there was no power, and Edwards thought, “Not now. I mean, I got a seven second lead to de Puniet. Can’t have this right now.� The engine felt better in the next few corners, but his lap was still slower by more than two seconds than the previous one.

“I spent a lap with my hand on the clutch just waiting for something to f--- up.�

It didn’t. He wicked it up on the next lap and finished the race strongly; the 17th was his fastest lap. When he reported the hiccup to the data technicians they gave him an answer he’d never heard before. “Well, we have a lap of data missing. I don’t know,� he was told. “We have a lap of data that is just, it’s not there. It’s like a blank. I don’t know.�

After the glitch it was fine and he “settled into a good pace and saw Ben (Spies) coming back to me. And I don’t know Ben if it would be tires or (he was) sore from a couple crashes, I don’t know what it was. It would’ve been nice to catch him and pass him, but in reality he’s more in the championship than me. I pushed and tried to catch up to him, but I think he was doing one of the sneaky, sneakys. He wasn’t about to let me get by him.�




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