Qatar test: Colin Edwards happy with neck injury progress

Colin Edwards has declared himself satisfied that his troublesome neck injury is clearing up after a largely meaningless night of testing in Qatar.

The one positive for the Texan after a short rain shower badly disrupted the opening night at the Losail International Circuit was the success of recent treatment on his neck.

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The double World Superbike champion was severely hampered by the neck injury during the opening test in Malaysia last month, and he went to see a chiropractor on his return to America.

Edwards first suffered the neck problem when he crashed out of the top six in a rain-lashed German GP at the Sachsenring last July. He aggravated the problem while fitting his Arai helmet on the opening day in Sepang in early February.

He said: “It is getting better, but these things take time. I’m still not 100 per cent but it is no problem when I’m on the bike. After Malaysia I saw a chiropractor that came highly recommended.

“I had some deep tissue massage where she was really pressing her fingers into my neck. It hurt like hell but it helped.”

Tech 3 Yamaha rider Edwards clocked a best time of 2.03.652 on the opening night in Qatar that was disrupted by a five-minute rain shower.

It rendered the opening night almost useless as some sections of the track took hours to dry.

Edwards told MCN: “Conditions were pretty crap really. I went out at the beginning and I only did five laps and there was no grip. That’s typical of Qatar because it takes everybody getting out there and running some laps to clean the track.

“That can take about two hours but then it rained. And rain isn’t going to dry when there is no sun. And it isn’t going to dry without any wind either.

“It has taken so long to dry out the track that it got so humid that the humidity was just settling on the ground. We were just riding for nothing.”

The wet patches were worst on the back section of the circuit from turn 11 to 16.

Edwards said riding was also difficult because seeing the wet patches under the Qatar floodlights was not an easy exercise.

He added: “On the back of the circuit there were some wet patches and you had to run about a metre off line. It is hard because you don’t know where it is wet and where it isn’t.

“You only really know when you’re right on it, but from further back you can’t see it because of the way it is with the lights. In normal daylight you can see wet patches that are quite a bit of a different colour.

“But when it is dark it is hard, and the surface here is pretty black anyway, so that doesn’t help without so much of a contrast.”