Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

By Henny Ray Abrams I Ii! ; ~ Q • §! - ric Bostrom is talking about how his older brother Ben caused him to [ break his knee, and he's smiling. It was a long time ago, it was Eric's own fault, and, had he not crashed his Honda CR25O, he might have won $75. one of which matters much in the retelling. The telling point is that his brother - his closest friend, racing rival and housemate upped the pace to the point where little brother felt compelled to keep up. Instead, he went down. And he's smiling. From that rough scrambles at Ladi to the dirt tracks and then the road race tracks of America, Eric Bostrom has kept smiling and winning, and he has gotten to the point where he has the chance to surpass his older (by 2 1/2 years) brother. Despite Ben's head start, Eric, 22, was the first of the Bostroms to win an AMA Superbike race, when he used the incomparable power of his Honda RC45 to hold off Yoshimura Suzuki's Mat Mladin, and Ben, at Brainerd last year. He repeated the feat at Pikes Peak International Raceway, proving he could win on tracks both fast and slow. The competition between them is fraternal, and any reports of friction can be dismissed as pure fiction. What isn't fiction is that Eric has come a long way in a short time, and there's no end in sight. What he brings to the track is a solid family background in motorcycling, years of experience, a voracious desire to learn, a solid work ethic, an honest outlook, and a refreshingly positive attitude. He smiles when he wins and he smiles when he doesn't - not because he's happy, but because he's learned something which he'll use the next time out. In a world where egos can overwhelm, the 22-year-{)ld Southern Californian is solidly grounded. At first glance, his demeanor is slightly surfer-goofy, but the words he chooses and the way they're expressed reveal a deeper intelligence. "It's a little difficult to put a finger on exactly what makes him so good," says American Honda's Merlyn Plumlee, Eric's lead mechanic. "He's just one of those really special kids that comes around every now and then:' Plumlee is as respected a technician as there is in the paddock. He worked at Muzzy Kawasaki in 1990, the year Doug Chandler won his first AMA Superbike title. From there he went to Europe and worked with Fred Merkel before returning to Muzzy's in 1992, the year Scott Russell won the title. He went back to Europe and ended up working on the original Honda RC45 for Rumi Racing before returning to American Honda in 1995. He'll be the lead mechanic for Eric Bostrom this year and is impressed with what he's seen. "It's obvious their family has some incredible natural ability built into it," Plumlee said. "Everything from their dad and their uncle through to them. It's probably that growing up, being around that environment, riding from the get-go, having the right choice of parents, all comes together. And somehow they both learned just how to read what the bike's doing really well." The Bostroms' father, Dave, and their uncle Paul were both nationally ranked dirt track racers in the l%Os. Dave met Eric's mom riding motorcycles, and Eric can remember riding on the gas tank of her motorcycle. Later, the whole family would go on trail rides together. "It brought the whole family togeth- ~ er/' Eric remembers. ~ ... = ~ 26 , With racing in the blood, it wasn't long before he'd give it a try. He was nine or 10, he remembers, when he entered a "real backwoods type of race," and he remembers doing well. His first dirt track was at Lodi, and it didn't go quite as well. "I didn't even complete a whole lap and I got high-sided big on a CR60," he says. "I went around one and two and went into three and stabbed the rear brake like a motocross bike, and I had no idea how fast I was going. The thing just stepped out and 1 let off the brake and I took a pretty good tumble. In the main event, I got slapped by everyone in the field, so I was pretty far off the pace:' . It didn't last long. Moving quickly through the ranks, Bostrom turned Pro at 16, racing in the Harley-Davidson 883cc Dirt Track Series, which he won in 1996 for Bartel's HarleyDavidson. On asphalt, he was sixth in the Harley-Davidson SuperTwins class that year, taking two wins. He won more often in dirt track, and one, in particular, was pivotal to his career. About a quarter of the way through a 1996 dirt track season in which he'd been doing a lot of running up front, though without winning, he made a discovery. "I don't know, some sort of reality hi t me and I was like, 'Heh, you've got to win if you want to be a top racer: And after that hit me, to close out that year I won just about every race, and it put a whole different perspective on things. It was about the time 1-96 (Raceway) came around, because we'd just left that Missouri half mile and I'd gotten second and it'd just been nothing happening all year. I'd just been falling a little bit short all year. That one really set it up right. I really decimated everyone. [won by like half a lap. It was really cool. It was my firstever National win. It was some sort of reality, like, 'Okay, I'm just going to do that.'" It was one of two perfect races he's had, both on dirt tracks. The other came that same year at Hagerstown. "At Hagerstown and [-96, I had two flawless races almost," he said. "It was pretty incredible. I really dusted everyone." He hasn't had that feeling yet in road racing, but it's not for lack of trying. '1 know I have what it takes to put it all to.gether," Bostrom says. "I think if [ ever accomplish doing that, that'll be the day that 1 probably won't be beat on the race track on that day. So far, I've never even really had that in all my racing years. I've never had a whole race come together perfectly, except maybe a dirt track - actually two dirt tracks in my final year on the 883:' The first superbike outing last season was at Mid-0hio. There were no expectations and no pressure. Having won most of the Formula Xtreme races, Bostrom knew what it took to go fast on a big bike, and his Xtreme times were closing in on the superbike times. "So 1 went out there with the idea that 1 could win just as well as anyone, and it came pretty easy," he said. "At MidOhio, we cruised around and 1 had a tough weekend in every class [ rode there. 1 wasn't nearly as fast as 1 wanted to be. So when we finished fifth in the Superbike class, i wasn't disappointed. 1 wasn't happy. I didn't want to finish fifth, but I wasn't disappointed." The next race was at Brainerd International Raceway, a track with a very long,

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