Continuing his dramatic turn in fortunes, Ducati Austin’s Eric Bostrom was victorious for the third time in the most recent six AMA Superbike contests today at Mid-Ohio. After suffering through a difficult ’04 campaign and getting off to a slow start in ’05 as well, ‘the Boss’ now appears to be fully back to form.
The Californian’s win in Ohio was a wild one. He made an incredible launch from the second row to dive into Turn 1 on the opening lap with the lead. Meanwhile, Saturday’s race winner, Mat Mladin, went the opposite direction after starting from pole, running as low as sixth on the first lap after a less than ideal start.
Bostrom and second Yoshimura Suzuki pilot Aaron Yates ran 1-2 in the contest’s early stages, slowly pulling free of a pack that included American Honda’s Jake Zemke, third Yosh runner Ben Spies, CBR1000-mounted Miguel DuHamel, and the slow-starting Mladin.
Following Saturday’s victory, the five-time champ noted that while it may have appeared to be an easy win, it was crucial that he got a good start. Sunday’s race illustrated exactly why. The Aussie battled furiously to overtake DuHamel, Spies, and Zemke during the race’s opening five laps, and then put his head down to make up the early ground he lost to Bostrom and Yates.
Five laps later, he had closed to within a half-second of the lead, but was then stricken by disaster. Hounding Yates through the Carousel on lap 10, Mladin had nowhere to go when the Georgian crashed to the pavement in a low-side spill.
The reigning champ ran off into the grass in an attempt to avoid his sliding teammate and his GSX-R. Mladin stayed upright for several seconds before running out of room and ultimately being thrown from his machine at a relatively low speed.
Bostrom immediately knew that something major had occurred just feet behind him, hearing Yates’ bike grinding across the pavement. After an initial flinch fearing that he was about to be collected himself, the Ducati star looked back and saw no one behind him in pursuit.
DuHamel picked up the chase after being mired down in sixth just two laps earlier. The Canadian overtook his slowing teammate Zemke in Turn 1 on lap 9 (Zemke retired into the pits the next time around), and then shifted his attention to dropping Spies a position as well. He accomplished that when the Texan ran wide in the Keyhole a short time later.
The Honda ace then had thoughts of tracking Bostrom back down from several seconds back, but the lead would stay relatively constant for the final fifteen laps other than the occasional fluctuations that resulted from the race’s heavy traffic.
Afterwards a joyous Bostrom said, “It’s exhilarating. I definitely had a little bit of help — what a crazy race. A lot of strange events and that’s kind of the way the season has gone — there’s been people dropping off, including me. The pace was pretty strong, that’s why I was so pumped at the end. I wanted to win, but I was just so happy to be doing ‘26s. That was almost good enough for me.
“These guys were pushing hard and I gave everything I had. It’s always such an honor to beat Miguel DuHamel and Ben Spies and all these guys. It’s great to be back up here. Big thanks to my crew.”
DuHamel was nearly as excited as Bostrom after securing his first top-three result of the 2005 Superbike season. He commented, “First podium of the year… it’s been a long time, but hey, it feels great. We’ve been working hard and struggling a bit here and there as everybody well knows. But the bike was really good. It was pretty decent yesterday other than the front-end problem that we had and today we corrected that. The bike was just solid and I really thought I could bring myself back up to the leaders. I got behind Jake and I think he had a problem. And Ben seemed to be struggling too, but I was struggling to get by them. Finally I did and I just tried to put my head down.
“I was trying to chase Eric down and the whole time I was thinking, ‘Man, if he wasn’t so in shape, I think I could reel him in’. I felt terrific out there and I was pushing hard to try and close that gap and keep him nervous to the end. I’m pretty happy for my team.”
Spies finished in third, his tenth podium finish of the season. The rookie’s remarkable consistency, combined with Mladin’s Mid-Ohio misfortune, has him right back in the thick of the title hunt with just four races remaining on the calendar.
Bostrom’s teammate, Neil Hodgson, overcame his inexperience at the 2.4-mile circuit to register a fourth-place finish. The 2003 World Superbike champ crossed the stripe one position in front of Erion Honda’s Kurtis Roberts, who picked up his first top-five of the season.
Jordan Motorsports’ Steve Rapp, who finished on the podium in the day’s earlier Superstock contest, took a fine sixth place. He was followed by his teammate, Jason Pridmore, and Lion Racing’s Jacob Holden.
Yates was able to remount relatively quickly following his crash and charged all the way up to ninth by the conclusion of the 26-lap affair. Hotbodies Honda’s Larry Pegram, who ran off the track himself during the race, rounded out the top ten.
Mladin too got his GSX-R1000 rolling again, but encountered more difficulty doing so than Yates. The Aussie made it around the circuit once, returned to his pits for some repairs, and then reentered the fray another time. His hard work paid off, as Mladin finished in 30th place and received a single championship point for his effort.
Mladin’s nightmare result has transformed the AMA Superbike title fight into an ultra-tight affair heading into the season’s final four races. The five-time champ is now just nine points in front of his teammate/rival Spies, 397 to 388, as the series heads to Virginia International Raceway in a month’s time for the penultimate round of the 2005.
(this article was taken from speedtv.com and was written by Chris Martin)
Harley-Davidson are already showing the 2006 range of H-D motorcycles on their corporate website.
