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Round B: Pikes Peak I te national Raceway
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BY PAUL CARRUTHERS
PHOTOS BY HENNY RAY ABRAMS
FOUNTAIN, CO, JUNE 1
K
awasaki's Eric Bostrom was a
missing man all weekend, lurking
in the shadows. Until it counted.
Never a factor in practice or qualifying, something clicked on Sunday,
and Eric Bostrom was once again
unbeatable at the tight and twisty
racetrack in Colorado, winning for an
unprecedented fourth time at Pikes
Peak International Raceway.
It was the 10th AMA Superbike
victory of Bostrom's career, and four
of those have come here at Pikes
Peak.
Prior to Sunday's National, you
would have been daft to even consider Bostrom a factor. He'd struggled
all weekend, and it wasn't until the
11 th hour that he got
his package to
,4.'
-'-
the point where he could win - though
no one knew it, not even Bostrom.
Starting from the second row,
Bostrom stormed off the start line and
into turn one. By the time he got to
the tight hairpin that is turn three,
only Ducati Austin's Anthony Gobert
led him. On the following lap,
Bostrom and Gobert had a late-braking duel into that hairpin with
Anthony Gobert (161 took the early
lead in the Pikes Peak Supe"'ike
feature, with Eric Bostrom (hidden
behind Gobertl and Kurtis Roberts (801
slotting into second and third.
Bostrom the victor. From there he
was never headed.
He put his head down and despite his on-board lap timer not
working - cut consistent laps that
kept him at the front.
It's not that he wasn't under constant pressure, however. The man
applying that pressure was Erion
Honda's Kurtis Roberts, the Californian staying close to Bostrom throughout the race. He'd gain time on certain laps, lose it on others, mostly
because of traffic at a racetrack that
is the most difficult on the circuit to
pass.
On the 40th lap, the red flag came
out with more than one crash littering
the racetrack. At that point, the race
was called complete with Bostrom
topping Roberts by 5.257 seconds.
You got the feeling that Bostrom was
surprised as the rest of us.
"Going in, 1 had no idea who was
going to win," Eric Bostrom said. "It
Eric Bostrom had the best package.
The Team Kawasaki rider out-braked
Gobert to take the lead on lap two,
and then went on to turn consistently
fast laps to earn his fourth Pikes Peak
victory.
10 JUNE 1 1 , 2003'
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