Ben Bostrom: AMA Superbike Champion

No matter what your personal opinion of the outcome of today's race, there are several absolutes. First, that Ben Bostrom won the championship. And that Honda prepared a better bike than Kawasaki today. And that Doug Chandler was leading when his bike broke.

This turn of events will not make Chandler happy as he has been upset with the Muzzy Kawasaki team on several occasions and has spoken with friends about being concerned about the direction of the team. Chandler had an awesome chance to make history today, one that he will probably never have again. That it was a mechanical failure that ended the run will infuriate Chandler.

The American Honda camp were all smiles and champagne and Ben Bostrom AMA Superbike Championship T-shirts in the podium area, slapping one another on the back and hugging anything that stood still long enough.
Their jubilation will be short-lived, because, from Bostrom's mangment's position American Honda's Gary Mathers and other managers put in place a long time ago a plan that would oust Ben from his seat at American Honda. They did not think that he could win the championship and decided to replace him on the team with his brother Eric. Or, as my Honda sources put it: Honda made Ben a non-negociable offer for 1998, Ben said yeah, his manager said, we need some more money, Honda said no deal what's Nicky's phone number and now Ben is riding for Ducati.
That situation will cost Honda millions of viewing impressions of their bike with the number one plate, because the next time you see Ben Bostrom and that number one plate he was rewarded with today, it'll be on a Vance and Hines Ducati Superbike.

So, and this would be ironic if it were not such a fairly normal circumstance, but it seems that Terry Vance comes out of disaster smelling like a rose. He hires cast-off Ben and gains several tens of millions of viewing impressions of his Ducati Superbike with the number one plate on it.

More later.

Dean