From 2007--Cat's In The Cradle: Can I Borrow The Car Keys?
by Dean F. Adams
Thursday, November 23, 2023
For a car, it was beautiful. All white with black wheels, it sat in the paddock at Road Atlanta in 1994 and men streamed past it, never looking up no matter how skimpy the outfit was on the Hooters girl walking on the other side of the pit lane.
The first thing Colin Edwards bought when he started making factory money was a house to live in and a brand new 1994 Acura NSX. American Honda heard that he wanted one and swung him a good deal on the then hard to get supercar.
"It was beautiful, man; I loved that car," Edwards said today.
Usually it's the teenager borrowing his dad's exotic car that ends up being ready for the scrap heap, but in this case it was the exact opposite.
"It's funny, I have zero memories of just driving that car—and I had it for six months and drove it a lot," says Edwards. "But there are no memories of me just driving it somewhere or anything. All the memories I have of it are just ... memory flashes of being sideways in the road at 120mph and there's a row of mailboxes coming at you really fast. Stuff like that. Stuff that you avoid and your palms aren't just sweaty, they're wet."
Edwards joined World Superbike for 1995 and left to test at Monza. His dad was going to surprise him with a multi-disc CD changer for his birthday. He was driving the NSX on the freeway in Texas when, one exit from his stop, the car went sideways in a puddle and tagged every corner in the resulting crash.
"It was a weird week," Edwards recalls. "I was testing the Yamaha at Monza and I crashed in the second Lesmo and injured my knee. I called my dad and said, 'Hey I crashed' and he said, 'Well, I had a little crash too'. And he told me what had happened."
"What made it even weirder was I got on the plane in Milan and flew home with the entire Doobie Brothers band. I was the kid sitting in the middle of all of them on the flight home. It was bizarre."
Once stateside, Edwards looked at the once mighty Japanese exotica and saw little but crumpled panels and scrapes. "It had spun and hit on every corner of the car. Really the only thing left on it that was mint was the roof," he recalls.
"There was $56,000 damage from the front bumper to the windshield."
The car's insurance company took good care of Edwards and his father wasn't hurt in the incident so he moved on. "But if I was late getting him a birthday present or forgot to call on Father's Day, I'd think to myself, 'Well, he did wad my NSX so he owes me', Edwards said half-laughing.
"No, I was fine with it then. Back in the motocross days he had a really nice Rickman Honda that he'd saved and he traded it to a dealer for two bikes and some parts so I could go motocross. I couldn't be mad at him."
The first thing Colin Edwards bought when he started making factory money was a house to live in and a brand new 1994 Acura NSX. American Honda heard that he wanted one and swung him a good deal on the then hard to get supercar.
"It was beautiful, man; I loved that car," Edwards said today.
Usually it's the teenager borrowing his dad's exotic car that ends up being ready for the scrap heap, but in this case it was the exact opposite.
"It's funny, I have zero memories of just driving that car—and I had it for six months and drove it a lot," says Edwards. "But there are no memories of me just driving it somewhere or anything. All the memories I have of it are just ... memory flashes of being sideways in the road at 120mph and there's a row of mailboxes coming at you really fast. Stuff like that. Stuff that you avoid and your palms aren't just sweaty, they're wet."
Edwards joined World Superbike for 1995 and left to test at Monza. His dad was going to surprise him with a multi-disc CD changer for his birthday. He was driving the NSX on the freeway in Texas when, one exit from his stop, the car went sideways in a puddle and tagged every corner in the resulting crash.
"It was a weird week," Edwards recalls. "I was testing the Yamaha at Monza and I crashed in the second Lesmo and injured my knee. I called my dad and said, 'Hey I crashed' and he said, 'Well, I had a little crash too'. And he told me what had happened."
"What made it even weirder was I got on the plane in Milan and flew home with the entire Doobie Brothers band. I was the kid sitting in the middle of all of them on the flight home. It was bizarre."
Once stateside, Edwards looked at the once mighty Japanese exotica and saw little but crumpled panels and scrapes. "It had spun and hit on every corner of the car. Really the only thing left on it that was mint was the roof," he recalls.
"There was $56,000 damage from the front bumper to the windshield."
The car's insurance company took good care of Edwards and his father wasn't hurt in the incident so he moved on. "But if I was late getting him a birthday present or forgot to call on Father's Day, I'd think to myself, 'Well, he did wad my NSX so he owes me', Edwards said half-laughing.
"No, I was fine with it then. Back in the motocross days he had a really nice Rickman Honda that he'd saved and he traded it to a dealer for two bikes and some parts so I could go motocross. I couldn't be mad at him."
— ends —
