Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

Fonrono, Co Colifornio AMA FORMUTAXTR€ME Round 3 April 29, 2006 I Eric Bostrom (32) dominoted the Formulo Xtreme rsce fot his firtt Yiclory on o Yomoho. Jqron Disolvo (4O) wot sccond wilh ,osh Hqyes (41 ending up rhird. AMA Lockhart-Phlllips USA Formula XtrEm€ championshiP a Hayes lost touch with Disalvo when he had a tankslapper through two gears on the fast back straight. Worried that the brake pads might have retreated into the calipers, Hayes was trying to hold the 8as wide open and pump the gas at the same time before the tight chicane that ends the back straight. "That's pretty hard when You're hanging on for dear life," he said. "l - more or less - I had to use all four fingers and pull the lever to the bars to stop on the back straightaway. And I worked on pumping after that, 7 Iwo Drts oi qooo lortune I ."rn" Eric Bistrom's way I this weekend. First. was a I .h.nne in the sLrsDension I "na sispension technician of his Yamaha R6. Second was a pair of rid- ers who fought each other and not him during Saturday's Lockhart-Phillips t-lSA Formula Xtreme race, They added uP to a victory for Bostrom, his first on a Yamaha, at the end of a long, sunnY afternoon at California Speedway. "We de{initely had a little bit ot changes with respect to the team," he said. "we kind of changed suspension programs. Sometimes you iust throw a dart and throw the right one." Bostrom got the jump on the field and spent more than half the race marginally in front of Erion Honda's Josh Hayes and Yamaha's Jason DiSalvo. The pair fought over second from the sixth lap on, with DiSalvo stronSer in the infield right, lead- ing to the back straiSht, and HaYes stronger later in the lap. As the battle intensified DiSalvo became a8itared and started making hand gestures, and Bostrom was gone, the lead growing suddenly as the pair sparred. By the time Disalvo solidified his second place, on the ninth laP, Bostrom had a comfortable lead that he'd stretch to 7.991 seconds at the fla8, "lt was a big surprise [the lead] jumped, but all I could ligure was those guys started racing together," Bostrom said after winning his first FX race in over seven years. His last win came in Las Vegas in October of 1998, the year he won the Formula Xtreme Championship. The win was his lOth and put him third on the all-time list. Bostrom said the suspension change transformed the R6. He said it went from a bike that ''wanted to highside me out of the saddle on Friday morninS into a bike that was very 'raceable' on Friday evenin8. lt was really an amazing turn- around, that's all thanks to my team." "We knew that the bike had a ton of potential, we iust haven't found it," Bostrom said. DiSalvo wasn't haPPy with Hayes afterward. He thought the Pair should have been working to catch Bostrom, not slow each other. Disalvo said Hayes "iust didn't want to let me by or work together. I mean. I don't know what that's all about. But you know we're all trying to win races here.'' Hayes response was that he ''was rac- in8, racing for position- lason's [Disalvo] shown on the charts all weekend that he can go faster laps than me. Kind of hard for me to let him get out front and iust go, you know- Sure I wanted to be racinS with Eric [Bostrom]. Eric was setting such a good pace. I was ,ust hanging on for dear life behind him and Jason came up and I was going to race him," but they iust never came back. So I never really got another shot at making a race for it." Disalvo continues to lead the champi- onship, now by seven points, 100-93, over Hayes. Aaron Gobert, fourth today, is third at 79. Gobert spent the day in front of Matsushima Performance's Dan.y Eslick. The gap grew and shrank, but Eslick was never able to make the pass. The margin at the end was just over half a second. Then came an interval of 14 seconds before RockwallHonda.com's RYan Andrews came home sixth, He sPent the race in front of teammate Ty Howard, who dropped off the pace as the race wore on and finished seventh. Cll CautonNn sPIEDIJVAY loNlaNA, CaLrFonNlA Rllurrsr APRrr 29, 2(X)6 FORHULA XTi€trlE FINAL L Eri. B6trom mm)i 2.,en DiS,l@ (Yam): l. lGh Hayei (Hon); 4 Aaron Goben (Hon)i5. Den), Ecli.k (suz)i 6. Rr& Andrews (Hon)i 7 Ty HoM.d (Hon); 8. Blake YounS (tuz,: 9. N

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