Colin Edwards hosts AMA regulars Cory West, Dane Westby, Lucas Scherb and Dustin Dominguez

On Sunday November 20th, the Colin Edwards Texas Tornado Boot Camp wrapped up the final boot camp of their inaugural season. During the Boot Camp’s first year, students have had the pleasure of riding with some of the best motorcycle racers on the planet. The star studded guest list has included Ben Spies, Josh Hayes, Freddie Spencer, Danny Eslick, Cory West, Dustin Dominguez, Dane Westby, Lucas Scherb and Doug Lawrence who all spent time riding with students at the Texas Tornado Boot Camp.

During the November 17-20th camp, Colin played host to AMA regulars Cory West, Dane Westby, Lucas Scherb and Dustin Dominguez along with students consisting of NESBA track-day regulars and other students from across the U.S. The Camp’s Most Improved Rider Award was presented to Michele Middleton of Phoenix, Arizona who improved her superpole time by an astounding 23 seconds from her first attempt on Friday. Superpole is a single rider, one timed lap on all three courses combined.

Filled with action, the weekend included a bar banging demonstration by AMA Pro Flat Track racers Merle Scherb and Lucas Scherb on their “fire breathing heavily modified 450cc weapons of flat track destruction”. Students who weren’t resting from the non stop riding and drills had the opportunity to partake in other activities during breaks like shooting trap, numerous pistols, a sniper rifle and the .50 cal “big stick”.

Following the conclusion of the camp, Colin immediately boarded a plane heading to Spain for his first test on the NGM Forward Racing BMW/Suter machine. This was the first time Colin was able to throw a leg over his 2012 bike as he was forced to sit out of the Valencia test while recovering from shoulder surgery. After spending some time on the bike, Edwards was quoted as saying "the bike is actually better than I was expecting" and "It's all basically electronics right now, that's the number one thing." Given Colin’s history with motorcycle development, expectations are high that the team will field a very competitive bike in 2012.

TTBC Instructors and AMA regulars had the following comments regarding their time at the final Boot Camp of the season:

Cory West, AMA #57 of Riders Discount Vesrah Suzuki shared his thoughts on his first Boot Camp Experience. “It was an awesome experience to come down and ride at the Texas Tornado Boot Camp. Riding with some of my old racing buddies and current competitors was a great way to sharpen the skills for next season. I’d like to thank Colin for having me down and I can’t wait to come back and play some more” - Cory West, AMA #57 Rider’s Discount Vesrah Suzuki

Joe Prussiano, lead instructor summed up his thoughts on the Boot Camp’s first year.
“I’m very proud of our instructors, we have professional road racers come to the camp that have plenty of dirt experience and when leaving they all comment on how they learned something they can take with them to use on the track. I’m also extremely impressed with our beginner/new riders, we have on multiple occasions, taken someone that has never thrown a leg over ANY type of motorcycle and after four days of instruction we have them feeling confident and in control on the bike, not to mention, they are putting down some impressive superpole times as well”

Brandon Cleland, AMA #75 attending his first Boot Camp provided the following assessment. “The camp was awesome and was a great learning experience. This was nothing like I had ever done before and the skills we learned like throttle control, balance, inputs into the bike, and steering the motorcycle with the rear brake are all things I can translate onto the pavement when I go racing next year.”

Instructor Shea Fouchek commented on the weekend “The improvements were amazing. Once tentative riders at the beginning, they were attacking corners by the end of the camp. I’m not only proud of my students, but also all the riders who attended.”


About the Colin Edwards Texas Tornado Boot Camp:
Colin Edwards makes his living going 200mph on some of the fastest and most exotic bikes known to mankind and he honed his skills and fundamentals riding mini-bikes on dirt tracks growing up in Texas. Colin created the Texas Tornado Boot Camp to share what he knows about riding motorcycles and the skills he shares with students transfer to any motorcycle...dirt, street or track. Like the pieces of a puzzle form a complete picture, developing or refining your skills at the Boot Camp will provide you with the complete set of skills needed to be successful on any motorcycle you plan to throw your leg over.

For more information about the Colin Edwards Texas Tornado Boot Camp and camp dates please visit: www.texastornadobootcamp.com

Original Story on Road Racing World

Q Why did you decide to start your riding school/camp camp?

Colin Edwards II: The main reason was because, whenever I jumped on a roadrace bike, I was fast, immediately. I didn't have to spend years and years and years of learning how to ride a roadrace bike. So obviously, once I got into roadracing, wow, why am I so fast immediately? Well, sh*t, I learned all my fundamentals for the last, since I was three years old and everything came from the dirt. So I put two and two together. I've always been known as a smooth rider, a "feel" rider. I've been good at setting up motorcycles. So it all came down to my wife - we had discussed having some kind of a school or camp or something, years ago ... 2000, 2002, right around that time. I thought, "Man, it'd be a shame to ... right now, I'm 37, so 34, 33-1/2 years of motorcycle experience, it'd be a shame just to take all this to the grave and not share it. What I've learned over the past lifetime." So that's really the initiative that got the camp going.

As much as I love roadracing and motocross and anything, really, to do with motorcycles, the most fun I've ever had in my entire life on two wheels has been on TT-R 125s with the slick on the rear, banging bars with your buddies. At the same time, obviously, Rich Oliver's got his Mystery School there. I used to ride with Rich at Kenny Roberts' ranch, in the early ?90s. Same with Danny Walker. We used to ride XR100s back in the early '90s back at my place here. And the reality is, all the fundamentals, the feel, all your basic needs, you learn at a much lower speed and much lower risk. So that's that. That's why we actually wanted to build the school.

Why did we build a hotel and cover a football field, and why did we build a mega-complex? That's another story. Basically, I've been to all these schools. I've been to all these camps. Danny's place, I haven't been to Rich's. But you know, Freddie's, and I've done a couple of things in South Africa, Australia, teaching my own schools. I always noticed that at 5:00 the fun stopped, people went back to their hotel and twiddled thumbs, waiting for 8:00 the next morning to start the fun again. I thought, "Well, if I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it my way." My style. I'm a people person. I enjoy hanging out. It turned into, "Let's just keep everybody on premise, build a Wild West town, put a little hotel." And it's turned into a lot more than I thought. I thought it was just going to have everybody on premise. The reality is, at the end of the weekend, everybody's exchanging phone numbers and emails, and it all turns into one big family, which is a dynamic that's just been amazing, for the few camps that we've done. Everybody knows everybody by the end - by the end of the first day, really. And the football field, the big arena, we covered - that was the first thing we did, before we built the hotel. We couldn't have people come from Europe or wherever and get rained out, and say, "Okay, sorry, come back next week." And that was it.

After that, it was, "Okay, if we're going to do it right, I want to find the best instructors," the best people I could possibly find to instruct. And everybody, all of our instructors, have, or still are, making a living racing motorcycles. Which they're all professionals. We have one instructor, a beginner instructor, who's never raced. He's ridden motorcycles all his life. He has more patience than God. So we put him in, and he's a real great beginner teacher. And we're all friends. We're all laid back. No ego problems here. It's just a good mix, a great team. And after that, it's just, "Come on in. If you want to learn something, come on." And it is a - it's hardcore. I mean, I'm tired after the weekend. Seriously, it's hardcore riding, and you get six hours a day. For a lot of that time, the instructors are actually on their feet. We're walking around and stopping people and instructing body position and line of sight, where you need to be looking, and doing a bunch of drills. You definitely get all the riding you want.

I've informally nicknamed it "Colin Edwards' Disneyland for motorcycles," just amongst friends. But the reality of it is, and you learn this throughout life, anybody under the age of 20 has the ability, or the adaptability, to learn something pretty quick. And it doesn't necessarily have to be fun. You instruct them, and you teach them, and they're more willing to make a change here or there to extract what you're looking for. Over that age of 20, there's the saying "you can't teach an old dog new tricks." You can, it just has to be fun. They have to not realize they're being taught. The more fun that's involved with it, the easier it is to soak up. That's what we have here. We have scheduled riding, but we have also scheduled free time. We want to go shoot some guns. Or if you don't want to shoot guns, you go ride. You can do whatever you want to do. But you need that time to decompress and figure out what you've just been learning. And then jump back on the bike again. And we're learning all this stuff too. We're picking up little pieces as we go, and just making it better and better.

Q If they're tired from riding, is there a variety of other things that they can do?

A Oh man, we've got so much stuff to do. The reality of it is, if you don't want to ride and you're too tired, you can go take a nap. You can take a nap, you can come shoot some guns with us. The first day's usually pistols, and I've got a long-range rifle that we back up a few hundred yards so everybody gets a shot. The second day, we shoot some trap with a shotgun. And the last day we break out the .50 and squeeze the trigger a few times on it. A lot of people think they want to shoot the .50, until they see it go off, and then they're like, "Oh, sh*t, maybe I don't want to shoot it." But it's not just guns. If you want to go out on the lake, a couple of our instructors will bring you out on the lake in boats. Or you can do some wakeboarding, or just go lay in the lake. Whatever it is. Or RC cars and paintballs. The majority of the kids, obviously they like the RC cars. We get all the kids here.

The grownups are pretty much spent after riding all day. Kids still got a little bit of energy to burn. Generally they're the ones out on the paintball course. But you know, it all just kind of works pretty seamless. Even with the go-karts. We've got the go-karts under the arena at night, turn the lights on, and whoever wants to go ride go-karts, fire away. There's a lot going on. There's a lot to manage.

At the end of the day, it is still 100% motorcycle. What we teach is just feel. We're teaching you where that limit is. And we've got a lot of guys come out here and crash. They'll spend the first day on the ground. It's that old adage - you've got to go slower to go faster. Stop making so many mistakes. The amount of emails that I've gotten from our students that have already attended, that just say, "it was the best four days of my life," or "I've learned so much, I don't know what I've been doing for the last 20 years." Over and over and over again. And I think that is when you've got six instructors that five of us have been racing motorcycles all our life, we're all teaching the same thing. We might say a little different things, but we're just trying to get you to absorb it. Whatever's going to make that light bulb go off.

Q Have you had good response from people coming to the first schools?

A The whole idea of this thing was - probably the best advice I got was from my motor home driver. He's a good businessman, he just drives the motor home for fun. He said, "You know, you don't want to start out on top." And we didn't. We didn't do any advertising. We just want to slowly build on it. Are we full - have all of our camps been full? - yes. Our next two camps, full ... we've got about two spots left in each. The more camps we do, and the more it gets out there, the more people are realizing they want to be a part of it. At the end of the day, it's Disneyland. I just pulled up out here. It's Disneyland. I don't know how else to explain it.

Q Do you foresee that you will be at all of the camps?

A Yeah. All the nine that we have scheduled this year are in between Grands Prix and CMRA races. We've scheduled it like so, just so I can be here. Any camps in the future next year, if we hold more, they will be advertised as I will not be here. If you want to come and just ride and be instructed by the instructors that are available. We might throw some of them in next year. But at the moment, we focus 100% on the fact that I'm going to be here at every one of them. That's why we made the schedule like it is.

Q From the photographs, it looks like an enormous financial investment.

A First I have to thank all my sponsors: Yamaha, Arai, Bridgestone, Sidi, Spidi, Monster, Motul, Spy, GoPro, One Industries, GYTR and Traxxas.

It was a big investment. But you know me. I'm a people person. I love ... it's what I've been wanting to do, instruct, and kind of give away some of the knowledge that I've learned over these last 34 years. The reality of it is, I remember reading Wayne Rainey's book about he always feels like he's been learning, and it's absolutely true. Every time I get on a bike, I just feel like I'm always learning something. If it be body position, or if it be where you're looking, or how you're holding the grip, or where your foot is on the footpeg, or a particular line that you're taking. We're always, all of our instructors. We had this conversation last camp. They're like, "We always feel like we're learning. Even though we're fast, we still feel like we could be faster."

Road Racing World Article: Colin Edward's Texas Tornado Boot Camp Opens for Business

"Thank you! Even with small kids, they all had a blast. Once the plane landed in WA Landyn asked if we could turn the plane around. It was an amazing vacation.....until next time :) "
Bettina Gese, 4 Day Edwards Experience, March 24-27, 2011 

"Edward's Camp n his crew is outstanding! Delivery FIRST class!!!!! 4 days of play time n learning! Wanna see Colin's toys-->> thats the place to be! Drills n tons of ride time on 3 different tracks, not to forget special guests; this time: fast MELISA & JOSH! Delicious Texas home cooking n chilling together made us feel like one big Family! Cant wait to ride in DIRT again! Thanks to all for this one of kind experience!"
Kat Zimpel, 4 Day Edwards Experience, March 24-27, 2011

"Just left Texas Tornado Boot Camp. What an amazing and unique experience! So much more than riding motorcycles - a 24 hour immersion in fun. Tons of riding plus fun with guns, boats, go karts, rc cars, campfires and great food. It felt more like camping and playing with close friends than going to school. Thoughtful attention to every detail - I cant believe this was their first real camp. They had their work cut out them. I came in as a road racer that had never ridden a dirt bike. But by the middle of the first day I was having a blast. Thanks to everyone at the camp. Y'all are amazing. C ya again soon I hope!"
Stephen Ludwig, 4 Day Edwards Experience, March 24-27, 2011 

"Yep, a surreal experience. I mean where else can you worry about a 5 yr old crushing your lap times and get to experience a "drive by shooting?! Learned more about bike control in these 4 days than the past 30 years. Great instructors, great gear, amazing facility and you never know who`s gonna be a guest instructor."
Ben Hinker, 4 Day Edwards Experience, March 24-27, 2011 

"Back from Boot Camp where I bruised, scraped and tumbled my way to better technique and faster lap times, but I don't think I could've possibly had more fun. Big thanks to you all, what an amazing weekend!"
Paul McComsey, 4 Day Edwards Experience, March 24-27, 2011 

"Really enjoyable weekend, like a reunion with old friends even though all new people. I highly recommend it."
Mike Manners, 4 Day Edwards Experience, March 24-27, 2011 

"BEST 4 DAYS EVER! Can hardly wait for another crack at the super pole!"
Alex Drysdale, 4 Day Edwards Experience, March 24-27, 2011 

PRESS RELEASE - FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Conroe, Texas (March 18, 2011) - Texas Tornado Boot Camp (TTBC) would like to welcome TRAXXAS as one of our newest TTBC sponsors. TRAXXAS will be supplying RC Cars and Parts to the camp for our RC Car activities. We really want to thank TRAXXAS for getting involved and bringing their great products for the use of those attending TTBC.

We feel TRAXXAS products are a great fit for us. The highly durable RC Cars and Trucks are great for heavy use and abuse. Their products will be on display in the Boot Camp Store at the Camp.

Thanks again to TRAXXAS and all of our sponsors for helping to make this dream a reality. Opening day is fast approaching and we are all looking forward to it.

About TRAXXAS

Traxxas was founded in 1986, and is the innovator of “ready to run” (RTR) radio-controlled models. Before the company popularized the concept, the radio-controlled hobby was built around kits that required assembly and painting, and did not include all the electronics required to operate them. Traxxas changed all that by offering professionally assembled models with the hobby-class performance of kits. Since then, “RTR” models have become the industry standard. Traxxas takes the concept further with “Ready-To-Race®,” and offers the fastest, most complete, highest-performance RTR models available. Traxxas is The Fastest Name In Radio Control® and builds the fastest Ready-To-Race® R/C models in the world.

About Texas Tornado Boot Camp

Texas Tornado Boot Camp is a camp founded by Colin Edwards located in Conroe, Texas. Colin aims to teach everyone attending the camps the skills he honed over the years to move to the top of his profession as a World Superbike Champion and MotoGP Star. Students attending the Camp will learn from Colin and a small group of dedicated instructors. Not just limited to riding motorcycles, students coming to the camp will be able to play paint ball, race RC Cars, and shoot guns with Colin.

Ultimate Motorcycling 

- The Texas Tornado Boot Camp Team

Hi y'all,

Colin is being featured in the upcoming issue of Next Moto Champion! Next Moto Champion is a great magazine that showcases the next generation of Superbike stars. If you'd like to read all about the day he spent with some young up and coming stars, be sure to check it out!

As Colin said,  “It’s important to get these kids the recognition they deserve, they are the future of our sport and we need more Americans racing MotoGP.”

It's going to print next week, so be sure to pick it up and check out the website for more information on these talented kids. 

Be sure to visit: http://www.nextmotochampion.com/ to get your copy!

Cover of the next issue:

-The Team

We will have many sections to the site, such as a section about The Camp, Colin Edwards, Blogs, Video, Photos and more. As time goes on you'll be able to come here to see photos and video from the Camp, Colin's races, and anything we may find interesting.

You'll be able to sign up directly on this site. We will keep you up to date via our newsletter that will be coming out soon. If you sign up now you'll be among the first to know.

Why don't you go kick the tires and take it for a spin? Let us know what you think!

-The Team