Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

Eric Bostrom in his tenure, always in service of the team. Ultimately, he was responsible for hiring Bostrom. There were a number of reasons Bostrom fit in at Kawasaki, Preston believes. He was a young rider who would compliment the veteran Chandler, who he might someday replace as the team leader. He'd shown he could withstand pressure by winning championships, both in road racing and in dirt track - an invaluable asset. He was willing to ride a 600 and had won Superbike races. He was personable, good for marketing, a public face Kawasaki could be proud of. And Preston liked that he was the younger brother. "My theory, and it's not set in stone, especially when you have two siblings that excel in one thing or another, usually the older one learns all the tricks of the trade first and the second one picks it up quicker," Preston said. "His brother has set a lot of goals and he can follow in his footsteps, and a lot of times we see the younger brother succeed, because he doesn't have to take the risks." The worries that other teams had about Bostrom, that he'd lost the plot, weren't a concern for Preston. "He had shown the potential to win," Preston says. "He was a young rider, where usually you don't Jose that potential, you just need some nurturing to bring it out or bring it further." "Kawasaki really wanted me and their program sounded kind of almost what I needed at that point," Bostrom says. "Because I wasn't, I guess, doing so good. I always had a lot of confidence in myself, but they told me they had a good testing program and they would help me out. And then it was a bonus having AI [Ludington] and Joey [Lombardo - both of Miguel DuHamel's former technical crew) there and because I'm good friends with Doug [Chandler]." Everything would be new and Bostrom knew it would be an up-and-down year. It wasn't until he ran in a Japanese championship race in Japan after the season ended that he realized just how far off he'd been. "Last year I had my bike damned near unrideable a lot of times," he says. "It was super up and down. It was the type of bike that you might be able to put in one fast lap on, but no way you could do 10 in a row because it was up and down. It did 38 MARCH 14,2001 • cue I • n • _ nothing special. All it was, it was too nimble. It would get upset really easy and it was very unstable. The whole time you're on edge on the thing and it would physically and mentally wear you out. You just couldn't keep up with the thing." When the season ended, Bostrom went to Japan to race at Motegi. He finished 10th, which doesn't look so good on paper until you realize he was honor-bound to finish behind Kawasaki World Superbike rider Hitoyasu Isutzu, who was hurt and not up to speed. The motorcycle was one of the Kawasaki Japan bikes and it was very stiff, everything his bike wasn't. He was trying a whole new philosophy and the team carried it over to the testing season this past fall and winter. "It's kind of like a process of elimination," he says of the learning process. "Now I'm to the point where I don't have it all dialed in, but I can start getting places faster and my team's a big part of that." Where he most wants to get is World Superbike so he can hook up with his brother Ben. For much of their lives the brothers were inseparable and Ben's being away last year was hard on both of them. "It's just not the same. Honestly, it kind of gives me a little bit of a boost to get over to Europe just so we can be back together again," Eric says. They've bought a 27-!!cre spread near Temecula, California, and Eric found the time he spent fixing the place up therapeutic. "We bought it as is and the place was a little bit of a junkyard," Bostrom says. "We filled up three trash containers full of junk. I guess anybody that's bought a house can understand that something that's been run down a little bit needs a little more work than you think. It's the only thing that I've probably ever bought in my life then thought that this is for sure the best thing I've ever bought. It's really beautiful and I'm always happy when I'm there. When my brother's home we have a great time hanging out there." Talent alone does not always earn World Superbike rides - in fact that's the exception. It's more about birthright or financial connections, and Bostrom has neither. If he gets a ride in World Superbike, he'll have to do it on talent alone and he understands the challenge ahead. "I think this year is going to be pretty special in the AMA, because there's a lot of guys that think lIS they're going to win and you can't discount any of them," he says. "Compared to last year, I think just about every track record is going to go down this year, because everyone thinks they're going to win. It should be good. Each team has fast riders, at least a fast guy, and it seems like most of them have a couple of fast guys. I think it's going to be probably the best year." As to how he'll do, he says, somewhat uncharacteristically, "I'm definitely putting a lot of money on myself this year, as far as I think that we're going to win a lot of races." Then he adds, almost apologetically, "See if we can back that up." To do it will mean having a much better bike than he had last year, certainly a more consistent bike. The team's only win came at Pike's Peak, where he'd won in 1999, and it came for two reasons, because American Honda's Nicky Hayden wore out his rear tire while cruising to victory, and because the track doesn't demand a lot from the machine. "Pike's Peak seems like a fairly simple track so all I really had to do was concentrate on going fast in a few sections and it came," Bostrom says. "But we go to a track like Elkhart, where I guess we finished on the podium [he was third in Saturday's Superbike race), but we didn't do particularly well at that track and that's because you've got to set up the bike for a lot of different sections. The biggest problem with the Superbike is that we lose a lot of time from the morning session to the afternoon session. Like at Brainerd, every morning we were either first or second in practice, we were like 37.0 or 37.1. And then in the afternoon we were doing 38.5s and 39s. And then on the 600 from morning to afternoon, we were always like the fastest guys and the times were always very close. If there's any worry going into this year, it's that lack of consistency from the morning to the afternoon." There were also clutch problems that lingered throughout the entire season. "Between our lap times slowing down and these little problems, it makes me mad, because half the races were where I know we could have ran up front," Bostrom said. The clutch problem has been sorted out and the team's working on consistency in the suspension, not only for Bostrom, but for Chandler as well. The competition within a team can be poisonous or productive. In Kawasaki's case, it's a plus, "because if we go to a track and just the two of us are testing, we just elevate each other. It's great to see Doug going fast because last year those guys were superdown. And it makes me mad when people discount Doug for having a bad year last year. They act like he's done riding or something. And here's a guy that has been fast ever since day one when he threw a leg over this bike. All of a sudden, one day, he's not going to be slow. It's just that, he didn't agree with what was happening with his bike last year. It just didn't match him. And now, you look at this year, and he's got it under control and he's fast, he's been fast everywhere we've gone." Chandler, like many of his Superbike brethren, exclusively races Superbikes, with the exception of Daytona. Racing the 600cc Supersport class has become something of an albatross, especially at the trio of Superbike doubleheaders, which is why Nicky Hayden opted out of the class this year. Bostrom has no choice, and has to make the best of it. Last year he nearly gave Kawasaki the 600 title, losing out by finishing third, just a fraction of a second behind Yamaha's Jamie Hacking in the final race at Willow Springs in a race won by Erion Rac-

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