Tuesday Conversation: Eric Bostrom

Despite finishing fourth in the 2008 AMA Superbike Championship, Eric Bostrom was not pleased with his performance. After deciding to take some time away from racing, Bostrom ventured to Brazil to oversee some projects he shares with his brother, 2009 Yamaha factory superbike rider Ben. Eric returned to the states to attend the Laguna Seca and Indianapolis rounds of the MotoGP championship, and we figured it was time to catch up with the missing Boz Bro.

RRX: So, what have you been up to since the end of last season?
Eric Bostrom: Sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll, man.… I don’t know [laughs]. No, actually it’s been a lot of work. [My brother Ben and I] got involved in a really good business, and kind of an ailing business [in Brazil]. The one that is kind of having troubles is the farm. The economic crisis is probably a big part of it, but other than that, the other problem was management and stuff like that. The guys that we got involved with didn’t quite do their jobs like they said they would do, but it’s been a lesson, and the farm is no longer a part of our lives. On the flip side, this other project we’ve got is going super-swell, at least partly because I was there and on top of it. So, that’s going good.

What is the other business?
It’s a piece of real estate in Rio de Janeiro, and it’s pretty special. It’s a project, and we need to do some work to get it ready for sale, but it’s going really well. Sometimes things move a little slower in Brazil, and these things are a little out of your control.

What do you do for fun down there?
I’m just trying to stay in shape and stay motivated. Not having the motorcycle to train for really changes your life. I’m lucky to still have that competitive itch or whatever. I want to do some bicycling races at the end of the year, and down there I don’t have a bicycle. So, I’ve just been running a lot, and swimming. I’m trying to train for an Ironman that Ben and I are going to do, figuring out if I can go ten hours hard on my body. I still don’t know the answer to that, but now I can swim enough to maybe survive it. So instead of working on not drowning, I’m working on getting faster. It’s going to be a blast! It’s probably been my number-one motivator outside of our business interests.

We talked to Miguel Duhamel recently, and he said he was interested in doing the 24 Hours of Moab with you again this year. Have you talked with him, or do you have any interest in doing that again?
Yeah, yeah, for sure. You know, we kind of abandoned him last year, in the sense that we told him we had a five-man team for him, then we had a couple people back out, and so it ended up being just him and two of our other friends. He had a pretty tough go of it. They had to ride it all for us, but Miguel, as you know, has always got a big heart. I’m not surprised that he wants another piece of that. I’ll definitely try to do it. It’s a few weeks before the Ironman, so it’ll be a good warm-up. I’m hoping that I’ll be in good enough shape to do the two-man pro with my brother, just to try to have him not kill himself in the 24-hour solo. I’m trying to be a worthy teammate of my brother on the bicycle; it’s going to be a big challenge.

Take us back to the end of the 2008 season. You finished fourth in the championship, but were seemingly at-odds with your motorcycle for most of the season.
Yeah, I’m still scratching my head about that, because somewhere something went wrong for me—I couldn’t make the magic happen. I think it’s because I was maybe putting too much pressure on myself to do well and forgetting about just racing the track and enjoying riding the bike. I think that in the past, I always got a big kick out of seeing what I could do on the bike. Last year I got too caught up in trying to be quicker than the competition, and not enjoying seeing what the bike could do. I don’t know, I struggled; I had some big crashes on the bike in 2007, and we had resolved some of the problems that the crashes had been coming from. We had a lack of entry grip in 2007 so I would always end up high-siding the thing going into the corner. In 2008, I think I still had that in the back of my mind as well. I just wasn’t getting it done. I was being a little bitch out there. It’s been interesting taking a year off, for sure.

It’s such a shame to see the series in the state that it is right now. I hate to see it like this, you just want to see the sport get better, progress, and be healthy. Something that really scares me is the lack of rider safety. The idea that people could be riding 200 horsepower sport bikes around Daytona in the rain is just ridiculous. You can hardly ride a scooter around there in the rain, let alone a superbike. So, it’s just frustrating. That being said, everything in life is a cycle. So, I guess this is just the cycle of the series.

The ’09 Yamaha R1 is a different animal. Ben and Josh have been really happy with its ride-ability, which you cited as a problem with the ‘07-’08 model. Do you ever think you should have stuck around for this bike?
Very rarely do I think that [laughs]. I obviously miss twisting the throttle, so those are the days that I think it would be cool. On the flip side, I think that Ben and Josh have really done a fantastic job and I wonder if I could keep up with them. So, they’re doing a better job than I could have done, at least the way I was riding last year. Obviously, I’m pretty happy for them, and I would like to see Ben get a couple race wins. The bike does look like a lot of fun to ride, though.

Any thoughts on returning to the road racing scene?
You know, I thought I would be in a position to really make that decision; that our business would be tidied up and I could get to it. But right now that isn’t as far along as I anticipated it would be, and that investment is my number-one focus right now. So, as far as racing in 2010, that’s not even an option, because things aren’t tied up. After that, I don’t know; we’ll just have to play it by ear.

I’d sure like the series to be a little healthier, but of course I know that it takes an investment of time to make something healthy. If all the big names of the series leave, then it doesn’t do any good drawing spectators and it can unwind pretty quickly, so it’s really important for the good riders to stay. With Mladin retiring it is a huge loss, especially right now, as the fabric that’s holding it together is pretty delicate. I guess I’ll just keep evaluating, but as of right now, it’s not an option. Maybe once I get things sorted and straight.