Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

have personalities a n d racing styles abou t as simila r as fire and ice, and you need look no further than the ir pits to see th e obvious contrast s. Bostrom is mor e reserved both in style and manner, and a bit of a loner. He can often be seen cruising the pits alon e on race da y, lost in his thoughts . Wa it, on the other hand , constantly surrou nd s himself with his family at the races, which includes younger brother and road racing hopeful ate "Ga tor" Wait. Fire and ice. Yet put them on the race track toge ther, and the resul ts - par ticularl y in the context of their recent AMA Su pe r Twins class ba ttles - have often been spectacular . Wa it from Lodi, Ca lifo rnia, is p er haps the mor e typic al of the new breed of you ng up -and-comi ng racer. His ontr ack maneu ve ring is aggres si ve and daring, borr owing cues from the likes of John Kocinski w hereby the objective is to ride the wh eels off the motor cycle regardless of track cond itions - from the first lap to the las t. "You have to be agg ressive righ t off the start," Wait says. "You have to go out th ere wit h th e a ttitude th at yo u wa nt to see how man y people you can lap. That's the way tha t I race. You ' ve got to p retend like there's a shark behind you and if you relax, then you're going to get bit. You've got to ride the balls off that bike. I like doing it that wa y because it keeps me on my toes, and I don't have time to think. I like to slide the bike a lot . People sa y I ha ve more of a GP style ." . Wait's racing plan is a stark contrast . to the slig htly older and maybe slightly wiser 21-yea r-old who hails fro m Redo ndo Beach, Californ ia. Bostro m, the older si b ling of 883cc -class ri val Eric Bos trom, p refers a more method ical , thinking man 's ap proach when in competition. " My w ho le a p p roach is to look aro u nd and think abou t things. I like a lot of turns at the race track to wh ere I can keep my mi nd occup ied and try to figure ou t w here to take a second off in this corner or tha t co rner. I like to sit down with a map a nd literally draw a map of the track and figure ou t what I did w rong and wha t I need to practice on. Then I go out there, and I usually wind up picking up speed by the end of a practice sess ion." That Bostrom, 21, an d Wait, 19, ar e tra veling in the same direction together shou ld co me as no surprise. They've bee n campaigning agains t one ano the r nearly fro m the beginning of the ir racin g careers, having started a friend ly riva lry d uring their early dirt track racing experiences at the Lodi Cycle Bow l, a place which has spawned the likes of Alex Jorg enson a n d Chris Carr. Bostro m, an avi d ska teboarder a t age 12, was influence d by h is fat he r, fo rmer Nationa l number holder Dave Bostr om , to give d irt track racing a try. "I was kind of iffy on it (dirt track)," Bostrom says. "But once you get hooked on it, you reall y ge t hooked on it. It's really one of the mor e fun form s of racing . After th at it was jus t every w eek'end , every wee kend, going to Lod i an d d oing sho rt trackand ITs, learning how to rid e." Fro m th er e, Bos tro m pro gressed rapidly through the ranks before reaching the Junior level and landi ng a ride with Terry and Steve' Gutierrez of Aztec Racing with help from Monty Miller of Ventura Harl ey-Davidson. For the 1992 season, Bostrom fielded bo th a 600 and 750 in th e AMA Junio r Na tionals for three years. "We did a little bit of struggling riding th e H arley, bu t we ende d up win- (Left) Family style: Both riders share the distinction of having to beat their s iblings on the track each wee k. Here, Ben Bostrom (11) Is pursued by brother Eric (20) at the Peoria n . (Below) Wait's (95) aggressive dirt track style carried him to three 883cc National victories during his career. He and Bostrom fee l that dirt track exper ience is a crucial key to success in road racing. . ning three Junior Nationals and finishing third in the points," Bostrom says. "We got enough points to make Expert, and afte r that it was really tough going. I guess that was the year that Ricky Gra ham won everything. We were really struggling, bu t then we ended up running third in the Camel Challenge and sixth in the National at Peoria. Then we set fast time at the Castle Rock IT. "It was har d to get used to the 750, bu t we also had an 883 to rid e, and it helped , becau se it was heavy, and a Vtwin, and it gave me the chance to make main eve nts, finis h well and get a lot of laps in. It' s a grea t bike for a training tool. 'We end ed up finishing the season and getting Rookie of the Year." But Bostro m, w ho wa s by now being hail ed as a TT specia list an d a fu tu re star of the Grand National war s, wanted to try road racing. He go t his cha nce in .1995 w hen he was offered a rid e wi th the Bartels' Ha rley-David son team fro m Sou thern California. "I'd been wanting to try road racing for a while," Bostrom says. "I ended u p getting a rea l good deal th ro u gh Bill Bartels and Rick Hut chins. They set me up with an XR750 an d an 883 d irt tracker and a roa d racer. You can't ask for much more than that. I wa nted to focus on th e road racin g bu t still get more experience in dirt track." But Bostro m has proven to be a quick study in the nuances of roa d raci ng, and since his first year with the Bartels team, he has continued to improve. In 1994, he was ra n ked a mere 20th in the AMA Twin Sport class, bu t 1995 we nt much better. Af ter a d is appointing 13th at Daytona, Bostrom climbed toward th e pod iu m in the 883cc class with several consistent top-five finis hes before lan ding on the box with a third at Gateway Inte rnational Raceway in Fairmont City, Illinois . Th en his season too k a serious uptu rn wit h a "d ream come true" victory in the final round of the series at Firebird International Racew ay in Cha ndle r, Ar izo na . To to p it off, Bostrom also p la ced third in the 750cc Supe rs po rt class aboa rd h is privateer 600 . He is quick to cred it his Grand National training with mu ch of tha t success. " Yo u need bo th," Bostrom says . "They' re sim ilar in that you get used to fighting for traction. On ce you hit a certain speed on a road racer, you're slid ing, and you don't want to slide. A lot of road racers know how to slide. But the dirt track experience sure saves a lot <1f high-sides. The ha rd p a rt is learnin g how to do it turning right, but I'd have to say tha t the d irt track is p retty importan t." Bostrom also stresses that you ca n't practice enough. He attempts to ride at least once a week, whe ther it be a practice session or a fun trail rid e on his Honda rnotocrosser, a nd he conscientiously absorbs whatever information he can to make himself faster. "You can always learn so mething," Bostrom says. "I think that it takes a lot of sea t time to learn w here the limit is, an d then go slightly over it and make that your new limit. I d on' t like to crash. You can 'twin if you do that, and every time you get hurt, it se ts you back. If you wa nt a long racing career, then you ha ve to stay on two wh eels." Fai li ng to d o so is a s t ig m a wi th which Wait fee ls he has been u nfa irl y labeled, but there is no ques tion that he has been aggress ive as ind icated by his rapid p ro gression through the racing ranks from his Lod i Cycle Bowl days, which were enco u raged by his fathe r, John. "My da d had an old dirt bike that he used to ri de for fu n," Wait says. "He wanted to get me into ra ci ng , so we join ed the Lodi Cycle Bowl Club, and he boug ht me a Suzuki JRSO. I was racing 80s by the time I was five yea rs old . I wo n some d istrict cha mpio nships and I tied for first in the 80cc Modifi ed class at the AMA Amateur Nationals in 1988." Wait continu ed to enjoy tremend ous success w hile racking up wi n after win in the 125 and 250cc ran ks a t Lodi, includ ing an incredible string of 18 race wins in 22 events in the 250cc class . But he admits to stru ggling a bit after moving to the 600cc Expert class. "I crashed a lot, because I couldn't get used to the weig ht of the 600," Wait says. "I w ould go to ba ck it in behind peo ple, an d it wo uldn't slow down, so I wo uld run into them ." Wait's biggest break came when he hooked u p wit h Mod esto Ha rley-Davidson owner Art Mitchell in 1993 to campaign bo th a n XR750 an d 883 on the Grand N ational trail as well as dab ble in selected National road races. "We go t one bike th a t year," Wai t says . "We had two sets of forks - one for the dirt and one for the road races - so we used to have to keep changing them . But after we started doing be tter, they got us another bike. Besides, it was a four -speed, and that wasn't cutting it for road racing . We used to have to put

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