MotoGP racer Colin Edwards (Monster Energy/Yamaha Tech 2) has been running street bikes at cringing speeds for a while now, a veteran in the truest sense of the never-ending asphalt ribbon. Best remembered for his Superbike championship-clinching contest versus Troy Bayliss at the final race of the World Superbike season at Imola, Italy, Edwards’ road race lineage can be traced back to the AMA 250cc National Series when he first broke into the pro ranks.

1992 was the year and Edwards would take the top podium spot in five of the nine 250cc class contests, topping another soon-to-be-star racer, Kenny Roberts, Jr. A couple more years racing AMA here in the States and Edwards figured he’d had enough and opted for the big show in Europe. It took a bit for Edwards to acclimate to the international lifestyle, struggling in 1995 before turning things around the following year with a solid 6th place overall finish in World Superbike. Edwards had arrived and began to lay the groundwork for his two World Superbike titles in ’00 and ’02. The son of an Australian motorcycle racer (Colin Edwards, Sr.), Edwards cut his teeth (literally) in the competitive two-wheel motorsports at the aggro age of four, racing motocross and reaching national status in the 50cc and 80cc classes before retiring from MX at the tender age of … 14! Jonesing again a couple years later after watching a race from the bleachers, Edwards’ road racing career would, ditto the story just told, take off and reach stratospheric heights.