AMA Pro Road Racing Sets Test Dates for New Orleans and Return to Homestead-Miami Speedway for 2012 Season

Ben Bostrom on the #11 Zero Gravity/Dunlop/AGV/Kerker-sponsored Honda CBR600F3 is shown during a practice session of the AMA Pro Road Racing 600 Supersport Series at the Mid Ohio Sports Car Course in July '97.  The Honda Super Cycle Weekend presented by Dunlop Tire event saw BBoz back on the Zero Gravity Honda team for the second year in the 600 class, and doing double duty in the AMA Superbike Championship Series on the team's RC45. 

Bostrom would go on to become the '98 AMA Superbike Champion after moving up to the American Honda factory team for the '98 season as a team mate to Miguel Duhamel, and he would win the '08 AMA Supersport Championship and the '09 Daytona 200 while riding for the Graves Yamaha team.


Bostrom will be back with the Michael Jordan Motorsports team for the 2012 season in his second season riding for the team, and will be aboard the Jordan Brand's iconic #23 machine in the AMA Superbike Championship.  As best as I can recall, the elder of the Boz Bros will be the only rider racing in the AMA Pro Road Racing Series that raced on the Homestead-Miami course when the series last visited the speedway in south Florida during the '96 season.  AMA Pro Road Racing has set their tests dates for the upcoming 2012 return to Homestead and the newly-added and brand new facility in New Orleans, LA. 

You can read the full press release below.
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AMA Pro Racing Announces Dates for Official AMA Pro Road Racing Tests at Homestead-Miami Speedway and NOLA Motorsports Park

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (January 24, 2012) - AMA Pro Racing officials announced today the dates for the official AMA Pro Road Racing tests at Homestead-Miami Speedway and NOLA Motorsports Park. In advance of the Big Kahuna Miami (September 21 - 23, 2012), the Series' first return to Homestead Fla.'s Homestead-Miami Speedway since 1996, AMA Pro Road Racing riders will get a chance to shake down their machines on March 20 and 21, 2012.

Avondale, La.'s NOLA Motorsports Park is America's newest racetrack, and before heading there for the Big Kahuna New Orleans (October 5 - 7, 2012) AMA Pro Road Racing will get the chance to put down some of the first rubber on the road course at the official series test, scheduled for June 26 and 27, 2012.

The two-day tests will include track time from 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. with a 60-minute lunch break, media availability and will be staffed by AMA Pro Racing competition and timing & scoring personnel. In an effort to keep travel and transportation expenses to a minimum, each test has been scheduled for the Tuesday and Wednesday following an AMA Pro Road Racing event in the same region.

The test at Homestead-Miami Speedway will take place just after the season-opening event at Daytona International Speedway, which will be held on March 15 - 17, 2012 as part of the historic Daytona 200 Week. Testing at NOLA Motorsports Park is scheduled following the June 22 - 24, 2012 event at Barber Motorsports Park, which is located roughly 400 miles away in Birmingham, Ala. Additional details about the NOLA Motorsports Park test will be released via competition bulletins in the coming months.

In order to participate in either test, riders must have a valid 2012 AMA Pro Road Racing competition license and be pre-entered in the 2012 race event scheduled at the respective track. Entry forms and competition bulletins detailing each test will be available in the competition section of AMA Pro Racing's website.

Tickets for the Big Kahuna Miami at Homestead-Miami Speedway and the Big Kahuna New Orleans at NOLA Motorsports Park can be purchased at http://www.m1powersports.com/.

AMA Pro Racing is the premier professional motorcycle racing organization in North America, operating a full schedule of events and championships for a variety of motorcycle disciplines. Learn more about AMA Pro Racing at www.amaproracing.com. For additional information contact:   AMA Pro Racing Communications, (386) 492-1014, communications@amaproracing.com

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Ben Bostrom Grabs the Pole On His Pat Clark Yamaha R1 at AMA Superbike Suzuki White Lightning Nationals at VIR

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Ben Bostrom heads into turn 10 at Barber Motorsports Park during qualifying for the AMA Superstock Series in April of 2007. Bostrom put the Graves Yamaha/Yamaha Motorsports
YZF-R1 in the second spot in the field for the weekend behind polesitter Aaron Yates on the Jordan Suzuki. BBoz finished the event on the podium in third place behind the winning Jordan Suzuki of Aaron Yates and his team mate Jake Holden, and he finished the year second in the points to Ben Spies on the Yoshimura Suzuki, and then went on to win the AMA Supersport Series Championship in 2008 riding for Graves while amassing six wins and nine podium results in 11 events.
Ben's late season surge in the AMA Superbike Series has really amped up after he won the pole and the show at Laguna at the end of July, and he has been on form all weekend at VIR, leading the provisional pole session yesterday afternoon before being knocked down a spot by former team mate Josh Hayes. Bostrom, on his Pat Clark Motorsports Yamaha YZF-R1, took the pole this morning late in the session from Hayes and looks to add to his win tally in the series for the year, let alone overall. Great job Ben! Now let's bag another win my man!
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Ben 'Captain America' Bostrom stole the pole this morning in the closing minutes of qualifying to outduel his former team mate Josh Hayes in AMA Superbike Series action at Virginia International Raceway. Riding his Pat Clark Motorsports/Palms Resorts/Las Vegas Speedway Yamaha R1, BBoz waited until the last few minutes of second round qualifying to knock Josh Hayes into the second spot on the grid by just .246 seconds, after exchanging the top spot with him through out the session. After winning the pole at Laguna in July, and going on to win the event there as well, Ben's second pole in a row this year has him on a mission as the season winds down. He qualifed at 1:24.527 with an average speed of 95.828 MPH to Hayes' 1:24.773 and 95.550 MPH average. Official results are below.

Also of note for some of the other notables in qualifying this morning, showed little brother Eric Bostrom on the Cycle World/Attack/Yoshimura Suzuki GSX-R1000 slotting into the front row in the fourth spot at 1:25.315. This being only his third event back on the grid after a 1 1/2 year layoff, EBoz is obviously getting closer to his form of old before sitting out the series during the 2009 season. And Aaron Yates, in his return to the track for Jordan Suzuki after breaking his leg at the Fontana round in late March, qualified on the second row in the eighth spot at 1:25.961. Look for Aaron to be back in the mix real soon once his leg gets stronger and he gets back into full swing on the bike again. Never count out Double A Ron.
Tommy Hayden continues his quest for the AMA Superbike Championship by qualifying his Yoshimura Rockstar Makita Suzuki GSX-R1000 in the third spot on the front row with a time of 1:25.247 and returning RoadRacingWorld/Monster Energy pilot John Hopkins, out since the early part of the season after having surgery on his much-altered wrist, qualified his Suzuki GSX-R1000 in the seventh spot at 1:25.748 for the weekend's events.

Race one AMA Superbike action rolls off this afternoon at 3:15 PM EDT and can be seen in the usual tape-delayed version on SpeedTV tonight at 10:00 P.M. EDT. Tomorrow's race two action hits the track at 2:45 PM EDT and can be seen on SpeedTV at Midnight EDT tomorrow night late. Better set the tivo if you're an east coaster!


The official results of final qualifying are listed below as are the links to the weekend's events and the AMA Live Timing and Scoring.

Bravo to BBoz and the rest of the AMA Superbike Series regulars. This weekend's events should be wicked killer as the tight and fast VIR track is a great place for some tight competition. Let's go racin', WFO baby..........

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Official results of AMA Superbike round two qualifying at VIR this morning courtesy of AMA Pro Road Racing:

http://amaproracing.com/rr/events/results.cfm?year=2010&eid=2010011040&discipline=rr&class=SB&type=Q&rnum=2

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AMA Pro Road Racing Live Timing and Scoring for AMA Superbike Suzuki White Lightning Nationals at VIR this weekend:

http://laptraxtg.racersites-cluster.com/LapTraxTG/AMA/livescoring.html?LAPTRAXID=2010011040
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AMA Superbike Suzuki White Lightning Nationals at Virginia International Raceway event info including updated results and rest-of-weekend schedule:

http://amaproracing.com/rr/events/event.cfm?eid=2010011040
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AMA Pro Road Racing VIR round PDF results can be found below (for ALL classes).

This has proven to be a great addition and update to the site. Bravo to the AMA Pro Racing team (thank you Kathy Hoenig!!) for stepping up on these results!

http://results.amaproracing.com/pdfresults/rr/2010/08-vir/default.aspx
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Ben Bostrom Set For AMA Superbike for 2010

Former '98 AMA Superbike and '08 AMA SuperSport Champion Ben Bostrom has been confirmed to ride a Pat Clark Motorsports Yamaha R1 in the 2010 AMA Superbike Series.

With all of the late announcements due to not only the economy but the past dealings with

the AMA/DMG folks, it's good to see a rider of Ben's caliber-and personality-back in the

paddock again for the upcoming season. Although the fields could be slim this year due to

the 'downsizing' of not only the series and the payouts, hopefully with the major changes

announced with the AMA between the holidays the series will still have the chance of being turned around from the debacle of the '09 season. But that is another story for another time...

This is about Ben, and being able to see what is now one of the 'elder' statesmen in the series

returning for the 2010 season can only be good. Besides raising the level of competition on the

track, he brings a level head in terms of safety and sheer ability. Not to mention a great

personality to go along with. And returning on a Yamaha, albeit a satellite effort, should help

to keep Ben up towards the front of the field. Bravo and it will be good to see him back!

Thanks to the great folks at http://www.cyclenews.com/ and http://www.roadracingworld.com/ for the links to the official team releases below!

http://cyclenews.com/articles/road-racing/2010/01/18/bostrom-s-team-all-set

http://roadracingworld.com/news/article/?article=39127

While reading up on the official releases, the shots for today's updates are various shots of

Ben Bostrom over the course of the last 13 years or so.

From the top we have Ben leading on the #1 Vance and Hines Ducati over his team mate

Anthony Gobert on the #95 early in the superbike final at Mid Ohio in July of '99. Ben won

the '98 AMA Superbike Championship while riding for Team Honda, hence the #1 plate instead

of his more recognizable 11/155 number plate as he has or had raced with for over a decade and

a half now.

Next up is a shot of Ben on the #155 Parts Unlimited Ducati chasing his team mate #100 Neil

Hodgson during race one of the Road America weekend in 2006. This was shot in the turn 7 area as they also battle with the #22 Team Kawasaki effort of Tommy Hayden and the #20

Team Yoshimura Suzuki effort of Aaron Yates.

Then we see Ben qualifying his Graves Motorsports Yamaha R1 Superstock machine for the '07

event at Barber Motorsports Park in Alabama.

One of Ben's very first superbike rides is next as he catches some air during practice for the '97

AMA Mid Ohio Superbike event while riding the Honda RC-45 of Team Zero Gravity. His

ride this weekend and the rest of the year helped him garner the Team Honda ride for '98.

And last but not least we see Ben on the Team Honda CBR1000RR during race one of the Mid

Ohio AMA Superbike event of 2004.

Congrats to Ben Bostrom for the new ride and we look forward to seeing you on the track again

here in the States for 2010!

And thanks to you for coming by and sharing your time with Stu's Shots. You rock!!

Yamaha To Re-Structure It's AMA Road Racing Program With Graves Motorsports for 2010...

This probably comes as old news to most of you reading this since this actually hit

the wires on Tuesday October 27th, but Team Yamaha will be officially 'outsourcing'

all of their racing efforts in the U.S. for the 2010 season to Graves Motorsports.

With Graves having a major hand in getting Yamaha back into the Superbike class again in

the '09 season after a several year layoff, it's not like the 'handing over of the reins'

to Chuck and his company is going to be a stretch. More than anything, it sets a precedent

as to what and who we may or may not see 'officially' or 'directly' in the AMA Road Racing series

in the way of direct or even indirect factory involvement for next season. And though this may

come as a direct result of the state of the global economy, if you follow the series any at all you

can't not think what part of this was change was due to the handling of the series by the

AMA/DMG folks. And me being the conspiracy theorist-type, well, I see major rumblings

happening in the sport as a result of the strife and almost endless problems that seem to

occur in '09 as a result of their lack of what many deem to be 'proper oversight' in going

about running a professional motorcycle racing series. But that's just me, you'll have to form

your own opinion as to what kind of mess they created since taking over the helm of the

largest and most high-profile road racing series on this continent and doing what many feel is

just shy of driving it into a brick wall....

While you are pondering that thought, and since that is another story altogether, we will focus on

the quality machinery and utmost in quality riders that Chuck Graves and Yamaha have put

together over the last few years and what kind of record they have attained in doing so. And we

can take a look at a couple of those fine pieces of equipment that they have put on the track in

the process.

To those of you familiar with the AMA scene, the #155 bikes above are probably very familiar

as they are a couple of the most recent versions of the steeds as produced by Graves for none

other then Mr. Ben Bostrom, '98 AMA Superbike Champion, '08 AMA SuperSport Champion,

and among other things the winner of the '09 edition of the Daytona 200. Having been around

the bike scene since all but dropping out of the womb, B-Boz has raced just about every form

of motorcycles--and in some case bicycles--for quite some time now. After coming into the

Superbike series back in '97 with the Zero Gravity Honda team on the fire-breathing Honda

RC-45's, he joined the official Honda Racing U.S. team in '98, and promptly won the title.

Vance and Hines signed him for the '99 season, and he wore the #1 plate that year while

teamed with Anthony 'The Go Show' Gobert. Moving on to the World Superbike scene for a

few years, we were lucky enough that Ben came back to the states to run in the AMA series again for Team Ducati and then again, Team Honda, up through and including the '06 season.

Then Ben went to work for Chuck Graves in '07 running the Yamaha R1 in the AMA Super Stock

series, and going on to a 2nd overall finish that year in the championship.

But for Ben, 2008 was the turning point where things all came together, and as he put it once,

he started having fun again. And fun he did have, winning a boatload of races while running in

the AMA Super Sport class based on the 'old' 600cc platform, and winning the title in the

process.

The machinery shown above is a small look at the bikes that Ben ran in the '07 and '08

seasons. The shots of the bikes in the garage were taken at Mid Ohio during the '07 round,

and are of the Yamaha R1 Super Stock bike, while the on-track shots of Ben leading #36

Martin Cardenas and #4 Josh Hayes at Mid Ohio in '08 while romping to the win that day,

and of course the championship later in the year. And the shot of the #1 bike is the bike

he won the '08 AMA Super Sport Championship with. Or at least a good version of it as on

display at the Indy round of the MotoGP race back in August. It was one of many great

bikes they had on display that w/e.

I have to take the time to thank the following people for giving us the links below of the official

news about Yamaha turning things over to Mr. Graves and Co. for 2010.....and maybe beyond...

http://www.roadracingworld.com/, http://www.superbikeplanet.com/ and of course, http://www.speedtv.com/. Thanks to all you great folks for the hard work and efforts you put in to help us all keep up with the goings on around the mad world of motorcycle road racing. We couldn't make it with out you!

Thanks for coming by and taking the time to check things out here! And I hope you can come back again now, ya hear?!

http://www.roadracingworld.com/news/article/?article=38556

http://www.superbikeplanet.com/2009/Oct/091027m.htm

http://moto-racing.speedtv.com/article/ama-sbk-graves-takes-over-yamaha-effort/

Ben Bostrom Rides the 24 Hours of Moab.......

Dean Adams and his super people over at his bitchin' site, www.SuperBikePlanet.com posted

a great article today about '98 AMA SuperBike Champion and '08 AMA SuperSport Champion

Ben Bostrom.

For those of you like myself who have been fans of Double B since the days of the

old 883 class in AMA Road Racing will know what kind of champ, rider and super personality

the man is. What many may NOT know is that in his 'spare' time--like when he isn't winning

Superbike or SuperSport races, most recently the '09 AMA Daytona 200 victory in March--

that he rides off road bicycles. Now myself, I'm pretty ignorant to that cool sport, but if you DO

want to know more you can check with my buddy Tim Powers through his Indiana Climber blog

link on my left side column. But what I DO know, is this is at least the 2nd year BBoz has raced

in this particular race--the Moab 24. And this year the man placed 2nd in class and 68th overall

along with his team mate. Oh, and then there is the matter of keeping his eyes pried open for

the 41 some hours he was up last w/e in doing so. In the link below you can read about it and

check out the results from the official site as well as provided in the story. Thanks Dean--and

great job Benny! Get down man!

So, needless to say, I don't have any pics of Ben on his racing bicycle, but I DO have a few shots

here of him racing his Team Honda CBR1000RR Superbike at Road America in '04, and a shot

of him on his Team Graves Yamaha 600 SuperSport bike in route to the win at Mid Ohio to

eventually clinch the championship last year.

The single shots of Ben on the CBR are during practice for the w/e's Superbike double races,

and the group shot with Ben in the 4th spot was taken in the 2nd race of the w/e as he chases

his brother Eric, on the #32 Ducati, Team Yoshimura Suzuki's Mat Mladin on the #1 GSXR1000, Miguel Duhamel on the other Team Honda CBR1000RR, and followed up with Jake Zemke on

the Team Erion Honda CBR1000RR #98.

http://www.superbikeplanet.com/2009/Oct/091015godsunit.htm