Those of you watching the World Superbike series, either on this web site or elsewhere, have undoubtedly noted that Ben Bostrom’s results have improved dramatically in the past couple of weeks.
Bostrom, who is unquestionably an extremely talented rider, finished second in both races at Valencia, Spain this last weekend. He nearly won the second race, before being overtaken by a brilliant ride from Yamaha’s Noriyuki Haga.
Bostrom, whose style is to be aggressive on the brakes and slide the bike into and out of corners has had difficulty adapting to his new series, surroundings and tires (Michelin tires). After moving to the NCR Ducati privateer team from the full-works Ducati Corse team a few weeks ago, Bostrom’s results started to improve, in part because a tuner at his old Vance & Hines AMA Ducati team had joined NCR as a consultant. Moreover, Bostrom has found the right combination with Michelin tires to slide the bike.
After a pair of seconds at Valencia, Bostrom announced he is hoping for a pair of firsts at the next round of the WSB series at Laguna Seca, California in two weeks. Barring mechanical failure or a crash, we’re betting that Bostrom will win at least one of those races (he won one of them last year while an AMA rider).
Is Ducati Corse regretting the demotion of Bostrom to the privateer NCR team? We don’t know, but Bostrom’s future looks bright at this point, and we commend his perseverance.
