Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

Part 2 ROAD RACE (Left) Ben Bostrom (11) gets up to speed on his Zero Gravity Honda CBR600.· Bostrom will also race an RC45ln selected Superblke Nationals this year. (Left) Thomas Stevens ended up being an Interested spectator after revealing that he was leaving Kinko's Kawasaki for a shot at a superbike ride for the new Vance & Hines Ducati team. (Right) Miguel DuHamel will attempt to win a second straight Daytona 200 In March. they can go out there and bust their balls. but they don't have to worry about crashing and not getting 30 •• points or 35 points..If we lose 30 In an effort to improve the lines of . points here it's a long struggle to catch them back up. Especially ,n America comm.unication. Pa~.C81 Picotte is moving from Quebec. Canada. to with the points structure - if you don't Santa Ana. California, to be closer to finish one race. you',!e got to win his new Yoshimura Suzuki team.• , everything else and then you 've got feel like I'm a stranger when I come to guys like Dougie Cha'ndler that are the races," he explained. 'I'm leaving going to --ing do It week in and Canada, I'm arriving to the race track . week out. You're better off finishing on Friday morning and leaVing on Sun- third than r.acing for the lead and getting a zero when you go and crash the day night. We need to be more family. we need to be friends. We need to thing. If you're·there at the end with work together, do things together. I this race irack. if you're there with a need to spend time around the shop couple of laps to go, you can put your one or two days a week. I'll be close, head down and you can go. If you can't but out of trouble. What do you want do it, you can't do it. Pick up whatever to do in Canada, in Quebec, during you ~n get and come out of there. " the winter season ... It's snowing all the time or it's raining.. It's· cold· like Mladin' also recounted one of the con· shit. Just the wl!ather makes you feel versations he had· with Eraldo Fer· kind of bad. Everybody is kind of racci about joining the team. "He depressed nOW. in Canada. i think just said: 'Matthew, what are you doing? the weather is going to make me feel You are --ing crazy riding the'Suzu, good. Everybody's really pumped up. ki sideways all the time.' At Sears We've got a lot of new stuff. Every- Point, I think things got a little bit more thing's working really good so far, the serious. I think it was on the Friday or power's good. I'm not even in good Saturday. I don't know why it was on shape. Next March I'll be a different the Friday or Saturday because I was person." COincidentally, fellow French so far -off the pace It wasn't funny. He Canadian Miguel DuHamel is spending came talking to me at Sears Point and more time in Montreal. though he says said, 'You want to COme and have a that he splits his time between there, ride?' I said I 'can't agree to anything Los Angeles. and a house he has in just yet because we have another race. And then after that Las Vegas. Sarasota, Aorida. and at Las V.egas he said. 'You want If Fast By Ferraccl's Mat Mladln to ride my bike?' I said. 'Yeah. let'sdoesn't win the Daytona 200. he won't -ing go and do it.' And that was it. All be too upset. "It's not really a race done. No contract or anything put in track that the best rider's going to win front of nne or anything. Everything all the time or the best motorbike or was mutual there until I came back whatever," he said. 'It's one of those over here. Basically, he showed me races you have go along and you just the contract. It was reasonable, a couhave to be there at the end and if ple of things we changed and it was all everything happens, then good. (Scott) go. The contract was 'two pages. With Russell and (Colin) 'Edwards and all Suzuki I had a novel to ·--ing read. those guys are going to come over Not really, not that much. With Eraldo here from Europe anlL of course. I said, 'Usten, just give me a --Ing they're going to go out there and bust contract that's got about 15 clauses in their --ing balls. And In the race it.' • Briefl When Bostrom was here for the March race he remembers qualifying at about 2:00 on the 600. "This time around there was like no problem to run 58s • 58, 58, 58, I think I did one high 57," he said. "[ t wasn't all that hard a decision to make. After being don't know. I know some of these guys went really fast. one of the more heavily recruited riders, Ben Bostrom T)1at's going to be a good class this year. It's such an decided to stay in the Honda fold for 1997. He chose adrenaline rush on the race track. You start the race and to remain with Glenn Cook's Zero Gravity tearn, adding before you know it it's going to be over and you just the occasional superbike race to his 600cc Supersport hope to be up front." duties. And he'll have his younger brother Eric as his Bostrom finished the season fourth in points, with his teammate. (Eric will continue to race the best performance a close second to Harley-Davidson SuperTwins class, switching Miguel DuHamel at the Laguna Seca from the Bartels' team to Miller Electric.) World Superbike round. Bostrom spent most of the three days on Brother Eric has only raced the Honda the 600, much of it showing his brother the CBR600 once and that was in a CCS race. fast way around the track. But there was no This was his first chance to put a lot of question where his heart was. laps in, and his times were steadily '1t makes the track a lot funner," Bostrom around two minutes flat. After three days said about the Honda RC45. "Like on the 600, of testing just the 600, Bostrom, who tied the track gets a little boring because it's £latfor sixth in H-D SuperTwins points, saw out for so long. With these, they get you from some contrast with the H-D 883. point A to point B so fast. And you go "On both bikes, you've got to carry a through the infield spinning the thing and lot of corner speed, especially getting sliding the thing all over the place. So it really onto the banking," he explained. "The keep you on your toes and keeps you excitmajor difference is turning these things. ed. I like the superbike a lot. lt's a little more The Harleys, you've almost got to coast like riding in the dirt because you can steer through the turns. And these things the thing 0 much with the back wheel. ['m you've got to have fast comer speed. But comfortable with it." . you've also got to get it pointed so you Bostrom won't be doing the entire season have enough time to spin the tire. And on the superbike, so his learning curve will be that's where these guys are getting me. gradual. He said they would do a minimum Zero GravIty's Eric Bostrom. They're getting them pointed and then of four events and he didn't know which - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - they'll get a better drive off. [ went from ones. It would be up to Honda, he said. who finished as the runner-up to Matt Wait in the like a 2:04 on my first day to 2:02 on the second day. He was aboard the same machine that he rode to a Harley-Davidson SuperTwins class last year. "Then I Each day [ dropped a couple of seconds. The chicane, at 12th-place finish at Sears Point in his superbike debut. blew a shock out. We replaced that and we were getting the beginning of the weekend, was my best comer on the "The bike's good," he said. "What year is that? Who ready to go out again and we just kind of ran out of time. track and I still get through it well. Before I had a lot to knows? It's got a lot of new stuff on it. rm sure the bike's We threw on some new rubber and we wanted to go out gain in that turn, but now it's just that tenth that makes up to par. Me, 1 need to ride it to leam how to steer the and do some 51s with that good shock." the difference." Zero Gravit I 22 thing a little quicker so 1 can get off the comer. It's all about trying to get the back end to hook up. On the 600 you've got to carry some comer speed. With these, it's more you get in there fast, point the thing, try to get traction so it's really dialing in the Tear suspension and bike geometry to get it off the comers. Like 1 said, it's a pointand-shoot kind of thing." It was the third day before Bostrom threw a leg over the superbike. Once he did, he was quickly up to speed. "I turned in some 52s, some low 52s," said Bostrom, ••

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