MOVING ON
For 2003, Colin wanted to go race Grand Prix. “My relationship with Michelin was probably better than my relationship with Honda. It’s just a different style at Honda; you are a rider and you ride our machine. Michelin was more a family, and also that was what I loved so much about Yamaha. You don’t just have a number on your shoulder; you have Yamaha on your shoulder. For 2003, I signed a letter of intent with Ducati before the last race at Imola to ride World Superbike for their factory team, replacing Troy on the team as he was going up to Motogp. Honda didn’t have a team for me at the time in Motogp, and Ducati was going to pay good money. Then a satellite Honda thing came up for Motogp and Ducati didn’t want to get in the way of my dreams to race Grand Prix, but the deal was that I would learn all the tracks and they had kind of an option for me in the future. Then the Honda thing started turning south because of money and then Aprilia called saying ‘we need you because we need the Michelins. What do you need? Here’s s*** loads of money’. So it was done, and the next thing you know your career is over.” Colin’s best finish was the first race at Suzuka, where he got sixth in a race that saw Daijiro Kato, his former team-mate killed. “That was a freaking bummer obviously. Kato and me had won the 8 Hour and he had a big crash and I was not that far behind when that happened… a bad deal.” It didn’t help that confidence in the equipment was at a career low. “Riding the Aprilia, every time I came in my boot was covered in oil. One time the thing caught fire. So, here comes Gresini and it was a moment of brilliance when you see someone who is hungry, so we started chit chatting a bit. He knew there was something there and that got me back over to Honda for a year.” Teamed with Sete Gibernau, they were the best Honda had despite their satellite status. For 200507, Colin was Valentino Rossi’s team-mate at Yamaha, and then was with Tech 3 Yamaha for 2008-11, one of which (2010) was paired with fellow Texan Ben Spies. Three more seasons of Grand Prix racing on lesscompetitive machinery were to follow, with Colin riding for the NGM Forward team. Colin announced his retirement at the Grand Prix in Texas during the April 2014 pre-race press conference, and his final race was at the Indianapolis Motogp in August. Yamaha put on an event at Indy where the other riders spoke of how Colin will be missed for his straightforward style at the press conferences. He now operates the Texas Tornado Boot Camp with its unique mix of shooting guns and racing motorcycles. Don’t mess with Texas.