Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

very fast straightaway with a sixth-gear right-hand kink that takes more than a little bravery to master. The race at Brainerd wasn't flawless, even if he did win. Bu t as the race progressed, it was clear he was riding an intelligent race. "I think he caught all of us off guard," said Plumlee, who was working with Ben last year. "All of us knew that he was really special, but tl,e fact that he went so quick right away - having Al (Ludington) and Joey (Lombardo) and Ray (Plumb) working with him over there was a big bonus. Still, for him to win those two races so convincingly was pretty amazing. I think it took all of us back a little bit." "Brainerd was definitely a bit of a surprise," Bostrom agrees. "The weekend started out well. Actually, in the first practice, we were the fastest guy in the first session and I was like, 'Wow, all right, this is going good.' I know that Miguel (DuHamel) has won here in the past, and I think things are going to be pretty good. We had some setbacks and stuff. But then, when the race came along, everything kind of started clicking. I learned a whole lot in that race. I realized that I had asked for the wrong things in the gearbox, so the bike was geared off a bit. The bike wasn't fully working for me. I basically gave the wrong feedback, but the bike was so awesome. It still is plenty capable of winning. And I was thinking in my head out there, 'Man, if this thing was set up as good as it can be, it'd really be tough to beat.' But I didn't expect at all to win, and I was having a funny thought in my head because I was out there and I was running around in fourth and I was watching Ben (Bostrom) and Jamie (Hacking) and Jason (Pridmore) leading and I was thinking, 'If anyone of these guys wins, it'll be their first superbike win ever.' I was totally counting myself out. I mean, I didn't even think about it when I was out there, which is strange, when I think about it. I mean, why wasn't I thinking about it?" It wasn't until the penultimate lap that he took the lead and started thinking about the win. "It happened so late in the race that I actually got the lead, I think it was one lap before the white flag," Bostrom recalls. "Once I got there, I knew I had the power on tl,e straightaways. All I had to do was a halfway decent job of getting through the infield, and I thought that we had a really good shot at it." At the flag, he had .358 of a second on Mladin, who feels that Brainerd was his own best race of the year. What Eric Bostrom learned at Brainerd was how much there is to learn. "There's so many different combinations - the gearbox ratios and the suspension and the geometry and all that - and it's stuff I don't even understand," he says, "and I would like to. I don't need to understand it, becau e these guys do such a great job. But I would like to have a little better understanding of it. All I tell them is how the bike feels on the race track - if it's got a bit of a chatter in the suspension or if it's getting upset there or if it's running out of gear. And then "they can take it from there. They can do everything with !:hat. It's all about giving the right feedback to tllem." Plumlee thinks Bostrom is giving himself less credit than he deserves. "I've worked with quite a few of tl,e younger kids through the years and they're all kind of the same," Plumlee says. "Very few of them come at this age really knowing what the bike's doing. It's rare that they come in and go, 1t doesn't have enough rebound,' or, 1t's got too much compression.' The important t:hing is that he's good at being able t6 tell us what he feels like the bike is doing wrong. He doesn't have to know meffianically what it's doing wrong, he just has to be able to convey to us in a way that we can understand that in a corner it's got this problem for him, and then it's our job to come from that. And he's as good at that as any of the youngsters I've ever been around. And one of the nice things about him is that he's very analytical about tl,e race track, without being prompte<;l. He comes, sits down, makes track maps all by himself. He doesn't need you to prompt him to go look, to write this stuff down. He goes, writes t:hings down for himseIf, and for us. He makes notes that he's riding like a girl here, but then he also writes that right here the front end has a little problem or right here the gearing's not exactly right, or the wheel's off the ground in the back a little bit. He's real analytical, and I think that's going to be a big bonus to him, not only now, but in his entire career - some of the guys never really learn to do that. And he's already got tllat under his grasp." It was even more evident at tl,e next race in Colorado. The tortuous track is an equalizer. Though the Honda would get him off the corners, he needed a goodhandling machine to handle the variety of turns. "At Colorado we just got a really excellent setup," he says. "The bike was unbeatable. there. The bike literally won tl,at race. I think tllat I did a fair job of riding and had a few really good sections on the track, but I had a few shortcomings witll my riding tllere, also. I've been fighting that at every race track. I don't feel like I've ridden any race track to my maxincum potential. "There'll just be a little piece of the race track - a little piece, maybe two corners - that I'm not putting together as well as I know I could. It was at the little twisties before the front straight (at Pikes Peak). I knew I was losing time there, and thank God for me the bike was so good, it would make it all back up and then some through some of the higher-speed stuff." Bostrom learned his craft racing 50cc scooters tha t put a premium on carrying comer speed. "If you just spun the tire for a second, you lost all of your momentum." Dirt track was the same. "On a mile, you don't want to slip, you just want to keep the thing as in-line as possible." . That's his strength, completely the opposite from Miguel DuHamel' pointand-shoot style. "He's the best guy I've seen at getting the bike into the comer and then getting it out," Bostrom says. "He can almost come to a stop and get a huge drive. It's really impressive." Neither is perfect for every track, or every comer. Some reward the flowing style of Muzzy Kawasaki's Doug Chandler. "To me, you'll never see the chassis move all the way through the comer," he said. "He does a really excellent job. Both of those guys are a bit of an inspiration to watch because they're on different ends of the spectrunc." His brother is closer to him, though he's learned the point-and-shoot a little better. It motiva tes Eric to do better, and Eric's work habits motivate Ben. "I tlunk we really complement each other that way," Eric says of his brother. The two share a house in Granada Hills, California. "I really enjoy being around Ben," Eric said. "He's like a best friend more than a brother. In areas where I lack, he's strong, and maybe in tha t respect he lacks a little and so I motivate llim. It all kind of works out real well. I think we're like that on a race track, too - where, like, maybe I have a shortcoming, but I can watch him and pick it right up." As close as' they are, they don't find it hard to race against each other, since they've been doing it for so long. "It's really natural," Bostrom said. "It's just one of those things where I'm kind of a gentleman rider out on the track anyway. You've definitely got to give your brother some room." Eric' broken knee carne while chasing Ben at a rough scrambles in Lodi. "We were going back and· forth pretty good and it was coming down to the end . and started getting pretty tight, and Ben turned up the pace and I started down a hill and broke my knee pretty bad," Eric remembers. "It was stupid. It probably paid like $75 to win. But it. didn't have anything to do with that. It was just a win. I think he had me beat and I just couldn't accept it." Eric acknowledges that, on the track, Ben's not just one of the guys. '1 have a lot of respect for everyone," he said. '1 think toward Ben, even more respect because I've seen what he's capable of doing. And sometimes it doesn't always show on the race track. Ben's the type of guy - he's actually really incredible. We'll be out riding our dirt bikes and he can look at a type of jump and it'll have a 5-foot vertical lip and you have to clear some sort of gap and he'll jUst say, 'That's a third-gear three-quarter with a hard roll-on.' And he'll just go and make it perfectly on the first time. It's really impressive." What was difficult was seeing ~ by the side of the track after his rear tire blew during the December Dunlop tire tests. Ben was awake, though thoroughly abraded, and it shook Eric up. He had to keep riding while Ben was taken to Halifax Medical Center. "It was tough," he said. "A lot of things are going through your mind. I wasn't sure if Ben was okay. I knew that he was fairly okay. I went to the hospital, bu t still, going around the race track, I had a lot of thoughts going through my mind. It would've been real hard to go out and try to qualify or turn a real fast lap after that, because there were just too many t:hings on my mind. Fortunately, they didn't put me on the bike too long." Now he wants to stay on the bike as long as possible. There are 13 Superbike and 600cc Supersport races, and Eric's plan is to win every one. "It's certainly my goal," he said. "If I ever go out onto the track and think I'm going out there to finish second, I hope someone hits me. It's not my mental attitude. So if there's 28 races, at the end, I want to win 28 times." Winning races here is a stepping stone to bigger and better t:hings. Europe beckons, but he has seen others fail and is in no hurry to rush over there unprepared. "I defini tel y would like to prove myself a winner here first, and I don't mean just by winning a couple of races here and a couple of races there," Bostrom said. '1 want to be fairly dominant and know that I'm up for the challenge over there. I definitely want to head over to World Superbike and if Grands Prix are still around then ... I want to be up at ilie pinnacle of road racing. But I don't want to go over there and run around in seventh place for a while and learn tracks or use that as an excuse. When I go over there, I want to just win and win everything and say, 'Okay, I've done that.' It'll probably be a few years. It's hard to say because t:hings happen so fast. I dian't see my elf here. Two years ago I would have said you're crazy. Things happen pretty quick. I definitely want to be good and ready to go. This is my final year of a two-year contract, but I don't see myself leaving anywhere next year even if I have an incredible year this.year. I've spoken to some riders, especially Mat Mladin - I ha ve a lot of respect for him. We have it really well over here. I definitely want to go on to bigger and better t:hings, but I don't think there's any hurry. I'm not the youngest guy out there. If you look at the World level, a lot of the top racers from tl,e last several years have been closer to their 30s. If you look at (Wayne) Rainey and (Kevin) Schwantz and (Mick) Doohan and (Carl) Fogarty, a lot of !:hese guys are' ~ closer to the 30 mark, and that's -probably ~ when they hit their prime. I think I've got '" 2 a few years to play around with, do some .c winning over here and kind of make my If mark before I head over." 27

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