by Gordon Ritchie, Sports Editor of Two Wheels Only magazine, from the Summer 2001 edition of J magazine.

They don’t come less complicated and outwardly more all-American than the current World Superbike Champion, Colin Edwards II. Incongruously sucking on a wad of tobacco - a permanent fixture in his cheek - as he is interviewed in the aftermath of a charity golf game, the tall Texan delivers his pearls of wisdom in a no-BS fashion, peppered with minor expletives in a way that easily lulls the uninitiated into the feeling that they could be conversing with anyone other than four-stroke bike racing’s current World Champion. He could, in fact, be a polite but cocksure cowboy. He could be a maverick NASCAR Racer. He could even be a US Marine about to mount up in a Huey and cross the goddam DMZ, if you judged by the haircut alone. But a much-travelled champion of a global motorcycle series? One of the premier employees of the World’s largest motorcycle manufacturer? No way dude!

Yes, way dude, because ‘The Texan Tornado’ is walking - nay swaggering - proof that first impressions count for nothing. His neck may appear to have a scarlet-tinge, but that’s just because he spends much of his life outside in the European sunshine, living as he does during almost the entire season in the immaculately presented motorhome, itself a rolling piece of lone-star real estate, which he shares with his high school sweetheart, Alyssia.

Driving his version of home-on-wheels between venues himself, always available for interviews, hanging out with the fans, and just as stereotypically laid back as Texans come, Edwards is one cool customer. And more completely unaffected by the trappings of his World Championship success or the attendant media attention than possibly any World Champion in any formula of racing. Even now, after the global Honda PR machine cranked into frenetic life right after his first ever WSB Championship win last season, and effectively booked his diary solid over the winter.

His World Champion status (earned after having finally broken out from behind the long shadow cast by Superbike racing’s fastest ever gunman, Carl Fogarty) has had numerous other effects, however, most good and some bad. For example, the way he is seen by others is often different now. "Yeah I’ve seen a big change in the way some people treat me," confirms the 27 year-old Edwards, although on balance he looks, talks and acts no different than he ever did. "I’m just a normal dude - Colin from Texas - and a normal guy that uses the same shitter as everybody and puts my pants on one leg at a time. A lot of the time all I do is ride motorcycles a little better. That’s it. A lot of people have a hard time getting around the fact that I am so approachable. I say what I think, I cuss at press conferences - and that’s what I am. People want to know who you are so I don’t tend to change anything about myself. I just do what I do."

At present, just after the World Superbike Championship races at Donington Park in late May, what Edwards is doing mainly is attacking the two riders above him in the championship, Troy Bayliss and Troy Corser, having had the spectre of machine or tyre woes spirit away what appeared to be sure-fire victories in two or three of the near dozen individual races up to this point. Even still, he has won two thus far, and is definitely one of the favourites for the title again. To his eternal credit Edwards appears to have not changed his attitude to winning races either, continuing with his strategy-free strategy; that is, if you win every event, you win the championship.

"It feels good, y’know, to have been World Champion last year, but now it’s more a matter of basically realising that it was last year. It was a lot of hard work, but now I’m getting on with the job and going about winning it again this year. A lot of people have been saying about how it puts me under a lot more pressure - being World Champ and then trying to keep the title. I dunno if I think differently from a lot of them, but I’ve been working 23 years for one goal and that was to win the World Title. To me the pressure is off - I’ve done it, I’ve accomplished my goal. From here on after is gravy, so I’m looking to go out and win races and I know I can."

Earning the number one plate instantly promoted Edwards to the position of minor deity within Honda, with his championship win of an extra special significance in 2000. Honda’s bike racing arm, Honda Racing Corporation, fielded an all new machine last season, the VTR1000SP-W, a full-factory version of their first-ever vee-twin Superbike racer.

Avowed supporters of multi-cylinder machines, Honda finally bit the corporate bullet and made a twin. Departing from their favoured and almost eponymous vee-four engine format for the first time since the inception of the World Superbike Championship in 1988, HRC were taking a gamble of massive significance for sales of their roadgoing VTR and the other models they sell on the back of any racing success. With the larger capacity twin cylinder machines being the most effective in recent years, thanks largely to that man Fogarty, Honda opted to ride the rising Tsunami of the twins from other rival manufacturers. When their long-term WSB servant Aaron Slight - who pre-dated Edwards in the Castrol Honda team - went out of the championship race after undergoing a cerebral blood vessel operation in pre-season, the entire weight of expectation from the world’s biggest manufacturer was fixed on the results of Edwards, who was about to experience additional title challenges from several unexpected fronts to boot.

With all this added pressure, plus the stress and jet-lag of continually commuting back and forth to Japan to test for the all-important Suzuka 8-Hours endurance race, and with a new bike which wasn’t quite delivering on its awesome pre-season promise yet, Edwards had a season which would have broken lesser men, never mind lost them a mere championship. But as the records show, Edwards took the crown -ground out the results at times - before finishing with a flourish, and delivered unto Honda that which their premier team in MotoGP racing had just managed to lose for the first time in seven years - a World Championship. The fact he did it on Honda’s first attempt with a new format of engine spoke volumes about man and machine, and to some extent saved Honda’s global racing season.

His success has now merely added to Edwards ability to be an individual in this age of PR stultification and unremitting sponsor-speak. Admittedly this approach is a very common one in the hard-working, highly-professional, but otherwise relaxed Superbike paddock, but it was something his employers have had to come to accept and maybe now even appreciate, after some initial concerns when he signed for the factory squad in 1998. "In the beginning when I got with Honda I would slip up and say a few cuss words in TV interviews. When I say cuss words I mean that ‘shit’ is about the worst thing I’m gonna say," explains Edwards. "Honda would say, ‘well, you know... try not to cuss.’ This was like the first three or four months I was with them, but they finally realised ‘hey, that’s just him, that’s the way he is.’ Other than that, it’s been fine. Me and Honda get along great."

Edwards was no rookie when he joined Honda, replacing the outgoing 1997 Champion, another American, John Kocinski, in a team operated out of the somewhat incongruous location of Louth, in Lincolnshire, England. A culture shock for him maybe, after riding three WSB seasons for Yamaha Belgarda, with its team base in the far more glamorous Gerno di Lesmo, just outside the gates of Monza. Or is it just that Europe in general was a culture shock for Edwards and Alyssia way back in 1995? "I enjoyed it, and I am really happy to be in Europe. I have more or less a second family in Biggin Hill, England. They take care of my motorhome and I’m in touch with them all the time. They came to our wedding in the US and the whole nine yards. We’ve got a really good base with them, and we’re great friends as well.

"In Italy, I’ve got friends there, and pretty much everywhere we’ve got people we enjoy hanging out with. As far as getting used to it? I think the best advice about coming to Europe was given to me by either Kevin Schwantz or Wayne Rainey (two American GP racing legends) - I’m not sure which one it actually was now - but he said ‘as long as you accept Europe for what it is, and don’t try and bring a little America over here, then you will be fine. Accept the food for what it is, and just do as the Romans do.’ And they were right." What has been harder for Edwards to deal with is the human cost of being a bike racer for so many seasons. His racing past has been affected by not only a multitude of career-curbing injuries, an unavoidable part of pitting frail human flesh against tarmac and tyre walls without the benefit of a carbon fibre safety cell, but Edwards has also known the loss of people close to him, from early in his career.

Like every one of his competitors, however, he dwells on the malleable present and future, not the unalterable past. "I’ve seen a few team mates go away, and that is part of racing. It only took once for me to get my head straight and say, ‘hey I’d rather it happen when I was doing something I loved to do than while driving a car down the highway.’ "

Having vowed that he will quit bike racing before his 33rd birthday, five years hence, Edwards looks forward to more world titles and then retirement, with no plans to take up car racing, like many of his predecessors have. Coming from the land of CART, and from a NASCAR state to boot, does he take any notice of Formula One racing? "I do, I watch it. I’m not an avid watcher, but when I’m in my motorhome or at home with nothing to do I’ll definitely watch it. Sometimes I’ll get up early in the morning to see it in America - but it’s not the cornerstone of my weekend. Car racing is also not something I would see myself doing. Two wheels is me, and when two wheels is over I’ll be done."

That day won’t be for a while yet though, for one of bike racing’s real characters, and Honda’s main Superbike man.

So what is Superbike Racing then?
The World Superbike Championship is a production based ‘silhouette’ class, more like DTM than British Touring Car because there are a host of changes made to the bikes, internally and externally, although the standard chassis must be retained.

• The machines, 750cc four cylinder, 900cc three cylinder or 1000cc twins pump out anything from 170 to 185bhp, with a top speed of 190mph reached at somewhere like Monza.
• The 13 round series features two races per raceday plus a Superpole qualifying competition, in which the top 16 qualifiers go against the stop watch for one flying lap, and one at a time, to set their final grid position.
• The grid of 34 riders features not only the 28 or so series regulars, but ‘wildcard’ riders from each country the championship visits, making for many surprises and upsets, usually in Japan, America and the UK.
• At present there are factory teams from Honda, Suzuki, Kawasaki, Ducati and Aprilia, with plans for Benelli and Mondial to get back on board before too long.
• Points go from 25 for a win, 20 for second, 16 for third, 13 for fourth, 11 for fifth right down to 1 for 15th.
• Usually the most dramatic and unpredictable of the two main World Championship classes, Superbike should not be confused with MotoGP, which runs 500cc two stroke machinery in a more prototype-based class.