Yamaha Gifts Ex-Eric Bostrom Graves R1 Superbike to Jay Leno

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Chuck Graves is the man behind the Yamaha Graves Motorsports dynasty that has been supreme in pretty much all of the AMA Road Racing classes in the last 7-8 seasons, and is a former west coast road racer who first burst onto the scene in the '80s at Willow Springs Raceway. A former multi-time track and FUSA Champion, Graves started Graves Motorsports in 1990. After more then proving his mettle and ability on the track, the man also proved it in his ability to craft a finely tuned piece of racing equipment into a fire-breathing 180mph+ two-wheeled rocket. And he hasn't slowed down any either.
Hooking up with Yamaha as the unofficial and official factory team for the tuning fork people in the early '00s, the team won multiple championships in AMA 600 Supersport and AMA Superstock as a litmus test. It paid off. Graves and Yamaha came back to the premier AMA Superbike class in 2007. With riders Eric Bostrom on the #32 Team Graves Yamaha YZF-R1 Superbike and Jason DiSalvo on the #40 like-machine, the team finished in the 4th spot (DiSalvo) and in the 5th spot (EBoz) in the final 2008 AMA Superbike Championship points standings, scoring 10 top fives and 27 top tens between the two riders. The only riders to finish ahead of them were '08 Champ Ben Spies, then-six time champ Mat Mladin, and Jamie Hacking on the Factory Kawasaki. Not a bad second year back. And in '09 Josh Hayes finished 2nd in the hunt, and Ben Bostrom nabbed 5th. As of this writing, Hayes is in the middle of the hunt for the 2010 AMA Superbike Championship with a four point lead and four race wins.
Since the '08 season, the rules have been de-tuned somewhat and the machines we now see on track are not the fire-breathing dragons of years ago (at least in the U.S. AMA Superbike Series). Bummer. Here are two of those Graves Yamaha R1 AMA Superbikes as they sit in the Graves paddock area at Road America in June of '08 while being readied for the weekend's events. Getting ready to breath fire.
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Whether you are a fan of Jay Leno or not (and I am so deal with it) you at least have to admire his automobile and motorcycle collection, that if you don't know about already, it's time to get out from under the rock. And slowly.

Anyway, Yamaha USA gifted an ex-Eric Bostrom '08 Graves Motorsports R1 Superbike to Jay Leno last night in part of the celebrations leading up to the Laguna Seca MotoGP event this weekend. Of course, all the BIG stars were there....KR, Sr., Eddie Lawson, Ben Spies, Colin Edwards......oh, and of course, Jay Leno. Sounds like a wayyyyyyyyyy cool time. Besides getting to put an ex-AMA (and REAL fire-breathing) Superbike in your garage and collection.

Read it and weep here thanks to the release and the great people over at Dean Adams' bitchin SuperBikePlanet.com:

http://www.superbikeplanet.com/2010/Jul/100721leno.htm
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And you can check out some pics from the guest list, thanks to Dean Adams, right here:

http://www.superbikeplanet.com/image/archive/leno/1/

And here:

http://superbikeplanet.com/image/archive/leno/2/

And here, too:

http://superbikeplanet.com/image/archive/leno/3/
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And before you have to crawl back under that rock again, go here....Jay's garage:

http://www.jaylenosgarage.com/
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