Colin Edwards got his first...
Colin Edwards got his first taste of the NGM Forward Racing BMW/Suter at the Jerez test, and says there's much more to come.
BROOKLYN, NY, NOV 24 – Colin Edwards says he doesn’t feel any extra pressure as the most experienced rider aboard one of the new generation Claiming Rules Teams (CRT) machines. Maybe he should. The success or failure of Edwards aboard the NGM Forward Racing BMW/Suter will be closely watched in 2012, since the CRT concept is one that Dorna CEO Carmelo Ezpeleta hopes to widely expand in 2013 and beyond as a way of controlling costs in the premier class in road racing.
The first test by the veteran ended on Thursday afternoon after Edwards had put the BMW/Suter through its paces for the first time. The Texan had to skip the test after the Valencia season finale while recovering from shoulder surgery. Now nearly 100% fit, the two-time World Superbike champion put his considerable experience and development school to use in evaluating the state of the most popular engine/chassis combination among the CRT set.
The results were a mixed bag, at best, though Edwards believes there’s much more to come. His best unofficial lap over two days of testing at the Jerez Circuit was a 1:42.6. By comparison, Scott Redding topped the Moto2 riders with a best of 1:42.9. And Edwards’ best dry lap from this year’s Spanish Grand Prix was a 1:40.188.
Edwards gets set for another...
Edwards gets set for another practice session on the NGM Forward Racing bike at Jerez.
“Yeah, first impression is we got a lot of work to do,” Edwards said via cell phone from Jerez. “In saying that, the bike is actually better than I was expecting. It feels like we’re at about 65% of the bike’s potential. We’re just going to have to work. We’re just going to have to work to find the other 35%. It’s all basically electronics right now, that’s the number one thing. Getting the electronics right.
“We’ve got some issues with throttle opening and changing the power and yada, yada, yada, I could keep going. Electronics are one of our main issues. It seems like once we fix something the bike inherently gets better on the chassis side. So concentrate on the electronics, get everything working smooth and nice and natural and the chassis just improves with it. Then we’ll just focus on the next step.”
The Bosch electronics are new to MotoGP, which means it will take some time before they have the sophistication of what’s currently in use. “Kind of through the grapevine I think they have engines on Bosch and Magneti Marelli at the moment, working around,” Edwards said. He praised the Bosch engineers, but added “we just have a big gap. I kinda feel like I’m going back in time, I’m back to 2003 on the Aprilia just figuring out the ride-by-wire system. Eight years in advance you know what Yamaha and Honda and all these guys got, or I know what they got. So that’s one of the things.”
The chassis is stiffer than what’s he’s used to and it announces itself mostly at full lean. “I did have some problems back in ‘06 and ‘07 with some chatter and that’s when we really noticed our chassis was way stiff on the Yamaha and we kinda backed it down since then,” he said. “And it’s kind of a similar feeling. Not sure I can really translate it. You get in full lean and you’ve got this…it just feels rigid. The front wants to dig in, but the rear’s more or less pushing it across the track.”
After spending Thanksgiving...
After spending Thanksgiving testing at Jerez, Edwards heads back to the USA to continue recuperating from the shoulder surgery and a well-deserved off-season rest.
The BMW/Suter feels much different than the Monster Yamaha Tech 3 YZR-M1 he rode this year. In addition to the stiffer chassis, the engine isn’t as friendly as the Yamaha’s was. Edwards said “it’s an inline four-cylinder without a crossplane crank. It’s a screamer engine-type theory and, yeah, it’s a handful. It’s got a mountain of torque, it’s got a mountain. It doesn’t make a lot of noise, it makes a lot of power. And this is one thing, one that we’ve got to tame down as well.”
In its current state Edwards can’t ride the BMW/Suter like he did the Yamaha, when he’d throw it on his knee, use the power and electronics to pivot at full lean, and shoot off the corner. “We don’t have the electronics right, we don’t have the traction control right and we don’t have the comfort level to do that kind of stuff yet,” he said. “Like I said, that’s just… am I riding it different? Sure. Sure I am, for the reason I’m adapting to what I have.”
A further complication is the next generation of Bridgestone tires. In response to rider requests for more grip at the beginning of races, Bridgestone developed tires with a softer casing that warm up faster, but fade at the end of the race. With a bigger contact patch, the bike turns differently. “It wants to almost turn on a little bit bigger arc than this year’s tire, so we gotta mess around and play with that,” he said.
Now the team has two months to get ready for the first test of 2012 in Sepang, Malaysia, where the all-inclusive MotoGP test will offer a more accurate gauge of how the CRT bikes stack up against the prototypes. How would the BMW/Suter fare against the current prototypes? “Oh shit,” Edwards said. “Considering we’re two seconds or so off our race pace, I mean I have no idea. In the back of the pack, right now.
“But I know there’s a second and a half out there, so that’s up to us, really, that’s up to us and how much can we get done. Right now it would be a disaster if we tried to go race. 100%. So we got some work to do in the off-season to get it up to par. Obviously, our goal is to for sure be the first CRT bike and fight with the factory guys, fight with the prototypes, that’s our goal. Where it ends up, I don’t know. Hell, at Valencia if everybody crashed I might have been on the podium. You can quote me on that,” he joked.
Edwards won’t be idle during the off-season. After a belated Thanksgiving with his wife and two children, he’s off to the woods to hunt deer for a week. Then comes next year’s preparations for both his MotoGP team and the Texas Tornado Boot Camp.
The inaugural year of the TTBC exceeded his expectations and he expects even more for 2012. The 2012 schedule lists only four-day camps, but it may be misleading. Edwards and his instructors are considering running two-day camps within the four-day curriculum.
“Quite honestly our curriculum and activities the two days were just…it’s just hard to teach everything in two days that we want to,” he said. “And we know the second day, right at the end of the second day is when we notice people start to really kinda get it and kinda excel and then they have the third day and the fourth day to keep going. So the two days we’re, probably, our idea is to still have the two days, but incorporate them with the four days. So if you only want to do a two-day, show up Friday afternoon ride Saturday and Sunday with the group that’s already there. But we have enough instructors that we can get somebody up to speed pretty quick, can get up to speed fast enough if they’re already in a group.”