I always enjoyed adventure and trying new things when I was growing up, largely influenced and pushed on by my parents, Guy and Daphne Edwards, who are very outgoing people themselves. My main interests detailed below, are the ones that have really stuck with me throughout my life, wherever I may be.
Obviously I love motorsport and anything associated with it. I love being involved in it and also watching any form of racing on tv, may it be F1 or rallying, moto GP or truck racing, I have always had an interest in watching it from when I was young.
Fishing has always been a strong passion of mine, right from an early age my parents took me out in Ireland on the tin lizzy, a small tin boat that the Mckinley (mother’s family) family owned. It was very basic, with a line and about five feathers and a lead weight on the end. We mainly caught Mackerel and Pollock around the bayes of Clifden and I really enjoyed taking them home and cooking them straight away, you can’t get any fresher than that. As I grew older, I was taught fly fishing, dapping and trawling, along some of the near by lakes and rivers, this was mainly for Brown Trout, Salmon and Pike and I have a lot of fond memories with my dad sitting on a lake for hours, sometimes not catching anything, but just talking about life and racing. The West coast of Ireland is the most beautiful and peaceful part of the world in my eyes, somewhere to this day I still use to get away from the racing world, which is the complete opposite of the West coast.
Word War One is another big passion. One day, when I was about five years old, me and my father were driving back from Le Mans and I asked about the ring on his finger. It just so happened that we were driving over the Somme river at the time, as this ring had been given to my father, by his father (A British bomber pilot), who had taken it from a German soldier in World War Two. There is where the passion started and I was very keen to learn everything about this war. We would walk muddy fields, dig at icy banks in the depths of winter, look at old war maps to locate various points of major battle and dugouts to look for artifacts, which there were plenty off. This became a regular occurrence for about ten years, we would visit the Somme about four or five times a year and stay in the “bot hotel”, which we called it, as my dad had accidentally burned the bottom of the lady owner whilst smoking his cigar at the dinner table, to which she was not amused! I learnt a lot about the war over these trips and amassed a massive collection of very rare artifacts, one of, if not the biggest private collection in the world, which I have a museum for in the UK. Unfortunately I have not been in a while, due to my dad’s stroke hindering his balance and not being able to walk properly.
Road Cycling has been a passion since 2004, when I was given my first road bike by my mother. I currently keep it down in the South of France to use when I am there and generally do 250km a week through France and Italy. There are some great roads around there to enjoy and it’s a good way to do endurance training for the longer races. It also gives you a chance to clear your mind and think about things that normally you won’t have time for.
Computer games have been another one of my interests, mainly on the racing front, helping me learn tracks that I had not been too and working on concentration and reactions over a long stint. F1 Challenge, rFactor and iRacing have been the main games I have used. I also enjoy first person shooters, like counter strike source and call of duty.
I also have a couple of collections, like model cars, knifes and guns from all over the world, that I have built slowly over the years.
