Eric Bostrom Survives Near-Death Scare at AMA Superbike Barber Round

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Eric Bostrom on the #32 Kawasaki Motors Corp. ZX-7R bends it into turn six at Mid Ohio during qualifying for the Mid Ohio AMA Superbike Doubleheader in July of 2000. EBoz went from riding for Team Honda in '99 to Team Kawasaki in 2000 and beyond. He then signed with the Ducati Austin team for the '04-'06 AMA Superbike Series seasons, and then went to ride for Graves Yamaha in '07-'08 before sitting out the 2009 and early 2010 seasons.
He came back this year to ride some select events on the Cycle World/Attack/Yoshimura Suzuki team for a full-on assault that is expected for the 2011 AMA Superbike Championship. His weekend came to a premature grinding halt-literally-on Saturday afternoon when a crash caused what was suspected to be a broken/jagged footpeg to go through his leathers and cause a near bleed-out on his upper left leg, one that took over 100 stitches to close up. We wish Eric a VERY speedy recovery so he can get back to the mountain and road bike training he is known for and look forward to seeing him on the grid for the full 2011 season.
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Eric Bostrom was involved in a last lap crash on Saturday afternoon during race one of the AMA Superbike Series at Barber Motorsports Park, and thankfully he got to the hospital on time to save him from bleeding out. Apparently during the crash, which occurred on the last lap of the race one final, the footpeg was torn or partially ripped off of his Team Cycle World/Attack Performance/Yoshimura Suzuki GSX-R1000, and somehow the bike came into contact with his upper-left thigh and pretty much 'fileted him open' according to his brother, '98 AMA Superbike Champion Ben Bostrom. The real scary thing was that the doctors at the hospital, after performing a near-three hour surgery to close him up, said if it had taken five minutes longer he would have bled out.

We're super glad to hear Eric is on the road to recovery, and with the Barber round being the season finale on the 2010 AMA Superbike Championship Series schedule, he will have plenty of time to heal up and get back into racing action before the grid lines up for Daytona in March of 2011.

Stu's Shots wishes EBoz a quick recovery and is glad to hear things ended up working out for the best in the long run.

But it sure sounds like the rescue crew at Barber could stand to take some lessons from the IndyCar rescue squad in terms of getting to the crash victim in a timely manner. You can read it all below from those on the scene at Barber Motorsports Park in Leeds, AL.
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Ben Bostrom, Eric's older brother and the '98 AMA Superbike Champion and '08 AMA Supersport Champion, talked with Henny Ray Abrams at Cycle News.com about the last lap crash that also involved Brett McCormick on the #23 Jordan Suzuki. You can read his spin here:

http://www.cyclenews.com/articles/road-racing/2010/09/26/eric-bostrom-has-near-death-experience
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And Eric's Cycle World Suzuki team had this to say on their blog about what happened to Eric while he was fighting for 5th place in race one of the AMA Superbike Series on Saturday afternoon when he crashed on the last lap:

http://blog.cycleworld.com/?p=1549
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