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Ben Bostrom on the Vance and Hines/Parts Unlimited Ducati #1 machine bends it through the carousel just before the last turn onto the main straight in the AMA Superbike final at Mid Ohio in 1999. Captain America, as can be seen from the stars and stripes on his helmet, is back ladies and gentlemen, as today he took his first win in the AMA's premier class at Mazda Raceway's Laguna Seca in over six years. Bostrom's last win in the premier class came at Laguna in July of 2004 while he was riding for Team Honda, and he has also won three World Superbike rounds at the famous west coast track.
In this shot, Ben had scooted out to a 3+ second lead over team mate Anthony Gobert and eventual '99 AMA Superbike Champ Mat Mladin, but had a shifter shaft seal blow out causing the bike to dump oil on the rear tire. He was able to re-enter the race but suffered a loss that surely could of at the time been his first win in the premier class. It would be at the Brainerd round approximately a month later that BBoz would notch the first of his now three wins in the AMA Superbike Series, to go along with his '98 AMA Superbike Championship which he won while riding the RC45 as a team mate to Miguel Duhamel on Team Honda.
One of the now-elder statesman in the class, as well as one of the most energetic and well-liked people in the paddock, Ben made everyone proud today, including Yamaha, who notched their first win at Laguna in the AMA Superbike Series. Great job Ben! We were rooting for you man!
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Eric Bostrom on the Ducati Austin/Parts Unlimited #32 machine wrestles his machine during AMA Superbike race one action at Mid Ohio in the summer of 2004.
Of note for today's race at Laguna Seca, Eric, on only his second ride back in the AMA Superbike series after a lay off since the end of the '08 season, came from mid-pack start today to end up 7th overall in the final. Racing with a pack that consisted of Brett McCormick (Jordan Suzuki-8th place finish), Chris Peris (Team Iron Horse BMW-9th place finish), Geoff May (Erik Buell Racing Buell-10th place finish), Taylor Knapp (Riders Discount Suzuki-11th place finish) and Jeremy Toye (San Diego BMW-12th place finish), EBoz stole the show in the middle of the race while battling with this tightly knit group.
On the 18th lap of the 23 lap race, EBoz set his fastest lap of the race (1:25:813 to Josh Hayes fastest lap of the race on lap 8 at 1:24:692 and Brother Ben's 3rd fastest lap of the race on lap 5 at 1:24:824) to slowly leap ahead of this pack and finish over five seconds ahead of 8th spot finisher McCormick. In the end the youngest of the Boz Bros. was a little over 35.5 down on big brother Ben, but had shown the fans and the other racers on the track that his learning curve is narrowing quickly. Great job Eric!
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The old guard treated the new guard to a sampling of what has been, and what COULD be again today at the Laguna Seca round of the AMA Superbike Championship, as '98 AMA Superbike Champ (and '08 AMA Supersport Champ) Ben Bostrom took his #155 Pat Clark Motorsports Yamaha YZF-R1 to the top of the box over Graves Yamaha's Josh Hayes and Rockstar Makita Suzuki's Tommy Hayden in exciting race action at the Monterey lagoon.
Winning his fifth pro race overall at Laguna (Captain America won here in July of '04 and also has 3 World Superbike wins at the famous Monterey, CA. track), Bostrom fired a shot that has been in the chamber for some time now to show everyone that he is not only back but that he is very capable of running with the boys. After leading for the first lap, BBoz mis-judged the corkscrew turn on the second go around, and fell behind Hayes and then-leader Jake Holden (M4 Monster Energy Suzuki-4th place finish) when running into the dirt, and fell just over 1.5 seconds back from the front battle. Working his way back up, he was able to lead the last nine laps and hold off Hayes by .440 seconds at the stripe for his third overall AMA Superbike premier class win in front of his home state fans on hand.
Also of note for today's finishers was little brother Eric on only his second race event back in action on a Cycle World/Attack/Yoshimura Suzuki who had a great battle mid pack that started with him 13th and ended with him finishing 7th overall. Very impressive indeed!
Great job and congrats to Ben 'Captain America' Bostrom on his great win at Laguna and his return to the top rung in an AMA Superbike race. Couldn't have happened to a nicer, harder working guy. Bravo dude, take a bow!
And great job by little brother Eric as well. Who knows, it might not be too long to see both of them on the box at the same time. With three events and six races left in the AMA Superbike Championship this year nothing is out of the question. And to see the Boz Bros on the steps together would be way too cool.
Next round action is at VIR in three weeks. Josh Hayes takes a nine point lead over Tommy Hayden and Jake Zemke another 42 points back in third to the Virginia double header round August 13-15th. Stay tuned as this one is far from over yet!
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Here's the story on the race from the bible of motorcycle racing news and Cycle News.com's Paul Carruthers:
http://www.cyclenews.com/articles/road-racing/2010/07/25/bostrom-s-drought-buster
And here is Chris Martin's version of the race from the great folks at SpeedTV.com:
http://moto-racing.speedtv.com/article/spoiler-warning-ama-sbk-results-laguna-seca2/
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AMA Pro Road Racing Laguna Seca AMA Superbike finale results:
http://amaproracing.com/rr/events/results.cfm?year=2010&eid=2010011035&discipline=rr&class=SB&type=F&rnum=1
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