According to sources close to American Ben Bostrom, it took an amazing amount of cooperation between Honda and Ducati Corse to put Bostrom on stage at the Honda dealer convention last night.

Bostrom is, of course, contracted to Ducati for the remainder of the 2002 season. Normally, riders contracted to one manufacturer do not appear at dealer conventions for other manufacturers. Doing so would be a breach of contract in most cases.

But, because Bostrom has many supporters at Ducati, and furthermore because they cannot offer him a ride for 2003 and wish him the best, they allowed him to appear at the Honda show, and announce that he would be re-joining Honda in 2003.