VOL. 51 ISSUE 11 MARCH 18, 2014 P23
Road Racing round to be held
on the west coast in 2014. The
series will run Superbike, Day-
tona SportBike and the Vance
& Hines Harley-Davidson Se-
ries at Laguna.
Andrea Wilson
The AMA Pro Road Racing series
has added Mazda Raceway La-
guna Seca to its 2014 schedule.
PHOTOGRAPHY
BY
ANDREA
WILSON
PAUL BOSTROM, 1944-2014
P
aul Bostrom, a well-known
West Coast AMA Grand Na-
tional racer of the 1960s and
'70s, passed away Monday,
March 10. He was 70. A fam-
ily friend said Bostrom had long
battled progressive supranuclear
palsy (PSP).
Paul Bostrom was the young-
er brother of Dave Bostrom and
both were successful on the AMA
Grand National Championship.
Dave's sons (Paul's nephews)
Ben and Eric Bostrom went on
to become two of the most suc-
cessful and most popular Super-
bike racers of the 2000s.
"Hey Paul, I still remember you
telling me as a young racer, 'no
one here is better than you'," Ben
Bostrom said as a farewell via Ins-
tagram. "I'm off to @absacapeep-
ic [the Absa Cape Epic mountain
bike race] now and that may not
hold true in this case, but I will put
it all out there like you always did.
Thanks for the thrills and good
times! Miss you."
Paul Bostrom followed his
brother Dave into motorcycle rac-
ing emerging from the racetracks
of Northern California. Paul was
perhaps best known as a TT rider.
Of his 16 top-10 AMA Grand Na-
tional finishes, 10 of those came
in TT Nationals.
The Bostrom name is firmly
rooted in Northern California rac-
ing. Dave and Paul Bostrom built
their legend kicking up dirt on lo-
cal flat tracks, including the half-
mile Calistoga Speedway at the
Napa County Fairgrounds.
"Paul and I went to pretty much
every tack in Northern California
back in the day," Dave Bostrom told
the Vallejo Times-Herald in 2010.
Bostrom's best career National
finish came at the Houston TT in
1970 where he raced a Triumph
to a runner-up finish behind win-
ner Jim Rice.
Bostrom, who ran the national
number 46 for years, raced a va-
riety of machinery during his pro
career including Triumph, Harley-
Davidson and Honda.
Bostrom was known as "one of
the nice guys" on the circuit, and
always calm and cool, accord-
ing to his friend Steve Gregory.
He rode for many top teams on
the West Coast such as Les Ed-
wards, Cycle Imports, Louie Aru-
ta and John Tavis Sr, Phil Cancilla
Racing, Custom Engineering, JK
Cycle Inn and Circle Bell Indus-
tries to name a few. He was a civil
engineer by trade and a father
of two children Jeff and the late
Dawnyce.
Larry Lawrence
Former Grand National flat
tracker Paul Bostrom passed
away on March 10.
