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/128607
Ben Bostrom By PAUL CARRUTHERS PHOTOS BY GOLD [, GOOSE lot of people venture to Africa to go on safari, hoping to get close to a lion or some other wild beast. Ben Bostrom's African adventure promises to be a bit more harrowing. On April 2, he'll face the wild men of World Superbike racing for the first time on foreign turf, a frightful experience indeed. Gone are the friendly faces of the AMA Superbike grid, the smiling and friendly Miguel DuHamel, Ben's brother Eric Bostrom, a predictable Mat Mladin and Doug Chandler. Now Ben Bostrom is traveling into the unknown, set to go head to head with the likes of Carl Fogarty, Pier-Francesco Chili, Colin Edwards, Akira Yanagawa and a horde of others with names he can't come close to pronouncing - on a racetrack he's never seen, on tires he's still adjusting to. Welcome to reality, Mr. Bostrom. Despite the difficulty of the task at hand, Bostrom remains his normal upbeat self. He knew going into this that it wasn't going to be easy - therefore, none of what has transpired has come as a surprise. And so far a lot has happened in Ben's World since he signed a contract to leave the friendly confines of AMA Superbike racing to venture into the unknown. Let's start with the first test. Having never been to Europe before, young Ben boarded a flight and headed to Imola in Italy. There he met his new team, his new teammate, saw his new bike, and went about his business of learning a racetrack that he'd never laid eyes upon. Oh, yeah, and he also had his first date with the Michelin tires that will either make or break him over the course of the next seven months. Luckily, it rained. "I was really nervous because it was a new team, a new bike, and they would all be watching," A 24 APRIL 5, 2000' cue • ... neVIl's Bostrom said. "The only thing that was nice was they kept saying, 'Look you just need to go out and learn how to ride these tires.' They were very reassuring that this was just going to be a slack, take-iteasy kind of a ride. We went out there, and I was fast - straight away. But it was because of the rain - it made it a lot easier for me. All the guys were really friendly, so it kind of took a big load off after the first test. But I was still nervous because I hadn't tested in the dry." "You're thinking that somebody is going to nln you oller from behind - I'm going to ""ish I had milYOr5 on my bike in that first practice." And what about that new teammate - the formidable Carl Fogarty, he of multiple World Championships and unfriendly scowl? "Carl has treated me really good," Bostrom said. "It's strange, you know. The guy is kind of a shy, quiet character, but when he's around his friends, he's a comedian. He's a really funny guy. He gets a bad rap because sometimes he just opens his mouth and says what's on his mind. He's an honest character and I guess that gets him in trouble every now and again. Now that I know the guy, I like him. 1 get along with him really well, and I'm glad to have him as a teammate. 1 don't know how much longer he plans to race, but I could be one of his last team- mates - one of the last guys who gets to learn from him, and there's definitely a lot to learn." A Willingness to learn is a Bostrom strong point. He's not headed to Europe with a boastful, "I'll kick King Carl's ass" outlook. Instead, he knows he has plenty to learn, and he's smart enough to know that he also has a good mentor to learn from - right under the same tent. "Our setups are quite a bit different," Bostrom said of information-sharing between the two factory Ducati riders. "He only weighs like a buck thirty or something; he's really a light, small guy. And I'm 160 [pounds]. Our styles are fairly similar as far as getting in pretty deep on the brakes, turning the bike and trying to get out of there. But he does some things differently. He brakes just a hair earlier, and he picks the bike up real quick - he gets off the corners so much harder than I am. It's ridiculous. He just picks it up so fast. I also use different brakes than he does. I'm the only guy in World Superbike, maybe the only guy in the world, who runs these four-piston calipers. I like to brake so late, I think that sometimes hinders my exit a bit. I am trying to modify it a bit. It works well in America, but over there the tracks flow so well. You have to set the corners up and really make some good exits. With those brakes, -one finger can throw you through the windshield. It's pretty cool." Adapting to Michelins from Dunlops is never easy. The tires have a different feel, and they also react differently. Bostrom had spent his entire career on Dunlops, but in order to race factory Ducatis in World Superbike you have to use Michelins. So far, it's been a bit tough, but it's only one piece in a difficult puzzle that Bostrom must solve. Last year, en route to finishing a close second in the AMA Superbike Championship, Bostrom had