Ducati Heroes: Ben Bostrom
Ben Bostrom had a brief but bright World Superbike career early in the new millennium peaking when he won an astonishing 5 races in a row on a factory Ducati on his way to 3rd in the 2001 series. Unfortunately for the American and his multitude of fans, his star fell just as fast as it rose.
American Superbike racer Ben Bostrom exploded onto the World Superbike scene after winning the second race of the Laguna Seca round of the 1999 World Superbike Championship as a wild card on his AMA Vance & Hines Ducati. In doing so he beat out Troy Corser, Pierfrancesco (Frankie) Chili and World Champion Carl Fogarty. Earlier in the day he finished second behind his fellow Vance & Hines team mate and troubled motorcycle genius Anthony Gobert (Gobert crashed out of race 2). Perhaps his performance shouldn’t have been so surprising since the 1998 AMA champion had finished 3rd in the second race the year before on his Honda RC45.
On the back of these results he gained a full season ride in the 2000 World Championship aboard a factory Ducati only to have to switch seats mid season with 500cc GP refugee Juan Borja and finish out the season on an NCR Ducati. This was seen as an ominous turn of events at the time but NCR and Ben seemed to jell.
The NCR team was jazzed by Bostrom’s attitude after the first test, especially after working with fiery Spaniard Juna Borja for a few rounds. “Ben thanked us more for our work after one test than Borja did in five races,” says Caracchi. “He’s great, Ben is. It’s so ironic that Ben is happy here, because Borja wasn’t. I know that our team will work 150% to keep him happy too.”
link: Superbike Planet
The partnership was very successful and Bostrom stepped on the podium 4 times that year to beat out Borja in the points to 7th position in the championship, enough to get him back on the factory L&M team for 2001.
In 2001, Ben rewarded Ducati’s renewed faith in him by setting the series alight, winning 6 races including a dazzling 5 in a row to take 3rd in the series 57 points behind new champion Troy Bayliss and 21 shy of 2000 champion Colin Edwards in 2nd. On the back of the tide of success and popularity, Ducati introduced a Ben Bostrom 998S replica.
That’s when thing began to turn sour. Bostrom started 2002 a credible contender for the title but unexplainably he only finished on the podium once and didn’t win a race ending up 5th in the title chase and losing his factory wheels. He returned home for a Honda AMA ride but was back in 2005 aboard a Renegade Koji Honda Fireblade. Renegade had run Ducati’s the previous year with Noriyuki Haga finishing 2nd in the championship but Ben wasn’t able to gel upon his return to the World Superbike series. He had just two top ten finishes and ended up a disappointing 14th in the points.
Since that time he has been rebuilding his career in the USA taking the Graves Motorsports Yamaha team to an AMA championship in the 600cc Supersport class in 2008. This year he is racing a Pat Clark Yamaha R1 in the American Pro Superbike series and finally back to race winning form in the Superbike class, taking victory at Laguna Seca in front of the MotoGP circus and running 4th in the AMA Superbike title chase with one round left to run.
Ben, welcome back your big bike winning ways!
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Hey on a related note, Eric Bostrom posted a tweet yesterday that he had a run-in with a shark?! Huge gash in his leg and dozens of stitches (caution – pic is not pretty!):
@BozBros: Shark bit in Birmingham. 104 stitches an lucky enough to avoid the femoral artery by 2cm, all is well http://plixi.com/p/47504497
Darn it! I meant to add “Keep up the good work” to Ben and best wishes for speedy recovery to Eric.