Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/128095
Eric Bostrom By ~here HENNY RAY ABRAMS does it come from? Where does the V '" aggression, the competitive fire, the passion, the hunger that it takes to compete on this level, in this series, against these riders, come from? It isn't apparent on first glance or first impression, or at all. Maybe that's not the right question. Maybe the right question is, how can someone this polite, this amiable, this engaging in his own slightly disarming way, go so damned fast? • Eric Bostrom isn't sure how to answer. It's not that he doesn't know the ansWer - it's just that the question begs an answer that he isn't comfortable sharing. That's his nature. Bostrom, his eyes hidden by a pair of Oakley sunglasses and wearing a day or two's stubble, and his dark shortish hair shooting off in every direction like fireworks gone bad, looks out at the high desert surrounding Willow Springs (where he's being interviewed) and thinks carefully before answering. "I guess," he begins, choosing his words thoughtfully, "if we were in the business of WWF, these guys would be doing a better job than I am, for sure. But we're not. And if we were in the business of NASCAR, these guys would probably be without a ride quicker than I would be. Somehow these guys seem to make themselves better by talking everybody else down. But the fact is that everybody that's out here is pretty damned good. I'm not say- 36 MARCH 14,2001 • cue I • n • _ ing everybody's equal or nothing because people have their strengths and some people really could care less about you out there, and that kind of always bums me out. I think that you want to win a race and probably that's what we're out here to do. You don't necessarily have to kill a guy doing it. Not if it's done right. Some people feel the same way I do, probably like 50 percent, but the other percentage out there have a lack of respect and you can hear it in the way they talk. I don't have too much respect for them." And that's about the most negative thing you'll ever likely hear Bostrom say. Bostrom, 24, goes about his job as a factory road racer somewhat quietly, not unlike his teammate Doug Chandler. Even when he struggles, which he did mightily on the ZX- 7RR Superbike for most of the 2000 season, Bostrom can discuss it with humor, his ubiquitous smile masking the disappointment. There are times, such as at the Brainerd round of the AMA/Chevy Trucks U.S. Superbike Series, that he found it hard to hide his feelings. But even his bluntest criticism is touched more with the spirit of missed opportunity than blame. In a sport filled with individuals, Bostrom is an irony, standing out quietly, but effusively. If you had to pick someone with a similar disposition, it would be Nicky Hayden. Both are relentlessly upbeat, .polite, and neither use profanity. They're both the product of their upbringings, strong families involved s in racing, with dirt tracking roots and racing siblings, in Eric's case his older brother, Ben - the 1998 AMA Superbike Champion who's spearheading Ducati's World Superb ike effort this year. Both came through Erion Racing, Honda's satellite team, with Eric winning the Formula Xtreme title in 1998 and Hayden winning the 600cc Supersport title the following year. Like Hayden, Eric won an AMA Superbike race before his older brother. Eric's first came at Brainerd in 1998 when, in only his second of four guest rides on the American Honda RC45, he beat Yoshimura Suzuki's Mat Mladin by .358 of a second, with big brother Ben third. Brainerd is one of the fastest tracks on the calendar, so some dismissed the win as a result of cubic horsepower. But he backed it up the next week on a track with an opposite personality, the tortuous road course packed within the tri-oval at Pike's Peak International Raceway. If there were any questions that he deserved to be on the factory team, those two races erased them. In 1999, Bostrom was promoted to full works machinery for an entire season for the first time. He would last one season at Honda and, to this day, he's not sure what happened. The season began, as usual, at Daytona, but not in the 200. It began during the December 1998 Dunlop tire tests. That's where Eric got his first taste of the high banks on a big bike, and, though his test went well, Ben's was disastrous. Going