Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

INTERVIEW 24 his is a pivotal yea r in the young ca reer of Ben Bostrom. In hi s mind, the 23-year-old Sou the rn Ca lifornia n has bee n mor e than anoin ted as the heir apparent to Migu el DuH amel in th e hearts a nd min ds of Am erica n Honda. He be lieves - ra ther, he hopes - that he's th e rid er to w ho m Hond a Racin g Co rpo ra tio n loo ks to carry the mantle of racing grea tness in the fu ture. It's a position of high expectation and responsibility, and Bostrom afte r the most disa ppointing year of his still-develop ing career - feels up to the challenge. By signing him to a two-year contract at the end of the 1996 season - a yea r in which his promise began to blossom (he was runner-up in the Harley-Davidson Su pe rTwi ns class a nd fo u rt h in the 600cc Supersport class) - Hond a showed tha t they expected great things from the 199 3 AMA Dirt Track Ro ok ie of the Year . They not on ly supported him in the 600cc Supersport class, but also put a su perbike under him for six races in a move calcula ted to assimilate him to the machine and the class . In his first outin g, a t La guna Se ca in April, th ey appeared to have made a ve ry wi se move. Bostrom qualified the Honda RC45 on the front row and went on to finish fifth . It would be his best ou ting . ext would come an eighth at Road America, followed by problem s at Loudon, and then sub-pa r finishes in the final three races at Mid-ohio, Sears Point, and Las Vegas. . His 600cc season wasn 't going much better. His best was a fourth in the opening race in Phoe nix, followed by a fifth at Dayt ona. Gi ven the level of fac tory support, and the cast of compe ting riders, the perform ances were prom ising bu t they wo u ld be his tw o best of the yea r. Seven of his final nine races netted d oubl e-digit resu lts, the oth er two a pair of sixths at Brain erd and Road America. At th e sa m e tim e, he w as r egu larly be i ng eclipsed by Eri c Bos tr om , h is younger brother by 2 1/ 2 years. The on ly class in whi ch he shi ne d was the 750cc Supersport class. Riding the CBR600 aga ins t th e bigger 750 s, Bostrom was impressive - two seconds a nd two third s in hi s first fi ve races before the season began to come apart. As you will read, Ben Bostr om had problems for mu ch of the 1997 season, but he chooses not to reveal what thev were. Rather than talk about them, h~ wa nts to leave them behind. His performance at the Dunlop Daytona tire tests in December ma y go a long way toward doing just that. No t only was he the fastest 600cc rider (in a field that included all of the Japanese factory riders but one), bu t he also turned the fastest lap of any ride r using race tires . Asked if he was goi ng to go ou t on a qualifying tire, Bostrom asked, 'They have qualifying tires?" He never did ge t one, but it di dn' t matt er. Th e tim e he turned on a race tir e was nearl y as qu ick as the fas test lap of the thre e-d a y te st that Vance & Hines' Anthon y Gobert turned on a qu alifyin g tire. And it might have been fast er had he n ot s pen t m o st o f the w eek end recovering from a debilitating flu that had him h ospitalized e a r li er in th e week, a nd kept him off th e su pe rbike until the final 20 minutes of the seco nd d ay. In those 20 minutes, he turned a lap in the mid-50s - right in the thick of it - and he only got faster. N ow it's time to see if he can kee p it up for the rest of the yea r. Ben Bostrom Let' s begin by asking what it feels like to be a factory rider. It feels good. I have a lot of help, a lot of good equip men t. I'm real excited . It' s really cool. I jump on the bike and easily tu rn fast tim es. It feels like the horsepower's th ere a nd every th ing. I ha ve one of the best tearns on the circu it, so I'm pretty happy. What's the difference be tween the superbike you're riding now and th e one you rode last year? It's not even com parable. It makes the one last yea r feel like a 600 compared to a su p erb ike . Th e one last year wa s a parts bike , an older bike. It felt great to me. I felt I rode a grea t bike. Then, progressively during the y ea r, it seemed like everybody kind of go t their su perbikes toge ther, and th en mine wasn' t competitive a t all . So I kind of backed off towards the end of the year. I'm no t going to say I quit, bu t I didn' t have the same drive I had at the beginning of the year. I sa id, "You know what? It's just not worth cras h ing on some thing that you can' t win on anyway." But it was really ·good. These guys are really good to me. They built that bike and I knew · that wa s my learning tool. So now I can ju m p on this o ne . I'm n ot like (Yamah a's) Ja mie Ha cking right now , wh o's just going, "Oh, my God, wha t's goin g on here?" I got the feeling for what it's like - only this bike's so much be tt er. It has so much horsepow er, it suspe nds we ll a nd it tu rns lik e crazy. We jumped on it and did very fast laps yes terday an d went really fast right ou t of the box. What's the hardest thing to get used to? Right now, the bike kind of fits my style a little bit, because I lik e to s lide and point the bike. I think tire wea r, conserving the tire. I just want to bum this thing up a n d d o fas t la ps, but I kn ow th at wo n't do. Let's go back to la st year. People, I think, expected more from you when you were on the su pe rbike. Yeah, I think so. Like I was really fired up to get on it. My first race, we went to Laguna and put it on the fro nt row on a bike that probably should n' t have mad e the top 10. [ think I was dri ven . I d on't think anyone had their stuff together yet because it was only the third race of the year. And then my resu lts went downhill . I kind o f go t bummed ou t, a n d there's a lot of reason s behind it that I d on 't want to ta lk abou t. Startin g th is ye ar, I think I'm go ing to show everybody the Ben Bostrom that started road ra cin g tw o ye ars ago on a Harley - a rider wh o wa s progres sing, and this ye ar is going to even tak e it further. I think th ere ar e more go od rid ers, and that's just going to mak e our spo rt look better. Every time you win a race, you can feel really good about it. Were you w o rrie d that y o u weren 't going to make that next jump? I worried a little bit because my resu lts were so bad on both bikes. It got to the point w here I wa s pretty dep ressed. And I was like, 'This sucks . I just can't wa it to ge t the year over with." And th en we we n t to Colorado an d I was like, "You know what? I'd rat her cras h than finish 10th , where I' ve been finishing. I' m jus t goi n g to win thi s thing. I d on 't care what it takes." I think I was getting pull ed really bad on the straig htaways and stuff, and I rod e just a little ove r my head , and I d id fall. But at least I knew, "You know w ha t? Ben Bostrom can win, an d in '98 it shou ld be a good yea r and I'll p rove that to everybody." I th ink everybody got d own o n m e because my resul ts got so bad that I've kind of go t a lot to pro ve righ t now, and

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