If this van's a rockin', don't bother knockin'.—Soup's Maggie. image by the stork twins

For those of you locked in a windowless dog kennel for the last six months, American Ben Bostrom is back in World Superbike for 2005 on a Renegade Honda CBR1000RR. We sent Brit' World Superbike writer Glenn Le Santo over to Silverstone last weeknd to rap with "BenBoz" and see how he's faring.

BB: You're gonna start out just like that?

SuperBikePlanet: Yeah.

BB: Great!

SuperBikePlanet: Last time I spent a lot of time with you it was way back when you were slipping and sliding around at the front of the pack, coming home in first place, second place. You were having a lot of fun in your racing.

BB: Listening to good music...

(I started bringing CDs to the races after a late night discussion one night in the paddock revealed that both Ben and I were fans of good old rock-and-roll music— and some Johhny Cash too. I handed Ben the first CD at Misano in 2001 and jokingly said "Here's you're lucky CD, you're gonna start winning races now." When Ben went out and won race two he said to me in the post race interview, "You better make sure you keep bringing those CD's!" I did and Ben went on to record five straight wins, including that memorable double at Laguna Seca.)

SuperBikePlanet: Good music, yeah. So what's happened since then?

BB: I've been getting my ass kicked! Stuff like that. But I got some inspiration last week from my brother (Eric Bostrom won an AMA Superbike race at Pikes Peak).

SuperBikePlanet: Do you still have that competitive thing going between you, even though you are not on the same circuits together anymore?

BB: Now we just cheer each other on.

SuperBikePlanet: Do you miss him?

BB: Always—because he's my brother. But we burn each other out a little bit. Maybe we play a little too hard when we are together. It really takes it's toll on our racing. I haven't told him this, I've said it really sucks leaving him but I understand now that in someway this is really better. When we were away from each other last time (2001) we kicked ass.

SuperBikePlanet: So you are saying that being with your brother may have been detrimental because you play too hard?

BB: The first year for sure.

SuperBikePlanet: Are you becoming more disciplined with age?

BB: Yeah. I'm 31.

SuperBikePlanet: Have you noticed a difference now you're a thirty-something?

BB: I noticed the difference when I hit 30. Your body changes, you notice that. You have to look after it a bit better. I had an introspective time looking inside my head thinking, shit, I've only got maybe ten years to sort this all out. Times running out.

Honestly, in 2003 I struggled. I look at my photos from 2003 and I looked tired. You could say to yourself, Ben, you looked tired. Karl Muggeridge said to me that I looked tired, and I said maybe I am playing too hard, I don't know. But now I know, sure enough that was it. At the end of the season I started coming to grips with the RC51 but it was never really my bike. That bike takes maybe a couple of years to come to grips with. I had a great team but first test on the 1000 I thought that bike is amazing. They are lightening quick.

But what really spun me around was my depth perception started to go a little funny, I had this massive earache for about a month. I thought "what is wrong with me?" My lap times - phew. They were right down. I actually crashed because I steered into a curve because I couldn't see properly. I felt really bad, Honda was launching a new bike and there was a lot of expectation on me. Especially after we were so fast at testing, and now I was letting them down - it was heartbreaking for me. And I told them, "listen I got a problem. Something's wrong with my balance or something, I'm not running good."

I had a really crap year in '03 and another crap year in 04, and there was the first time in my life that I thought maybe I'm going to have to retire. I don't go to a racetrack and work this hard just to run around at the back of the pack. I only enjoy racing for the lead. I didn't know what was going on with the ear problem, I had it looked at and they discovered I had a strange hole in my eardrum, it was weird, but enough about that!

It was the first time I had looked at retirement as a real option, I had a real moment. Half-way through the season I told my guys, thank God we are coming good again. And by Brainard I said 'hey guys I think we're gonna win Laguna' and that was a nice feeling, it was coming back. From then on it was fine.

I'm not the best guy through lapped traffic and I ended up hating the AMA series because it has a real problem with lapped traffic. They wreck every single race. You come in on them and you don't know where they are gonna be. I'm not kidding there were some great races in 2004 with five guys at the front separated by thousandths of a second. But then we'd come into lap riders and end up all strung out, three seconds apart and stuff. It's a joke. Usually I'd finish at the back because I am the first guy to shut off. I'm not one to go charging into people. I don't want to go knocking someone down, especially some privateer whose paying for his own stuff. You destroy your bike, maybe you get busted up yourself too.

It's the problem with the AMA, the organisation can't see beyond amateur racing. It's really sad. People watching television don't give a crap about watching lappers. They want to watch racing, they want to see five guys come to the finish line with nothing between them and fight it out to the very end. End of story, that's what racing is all about.

They've got 40 guys on the grid starting the race, the percentage qualification time cut-off is too wide. What the hell are they doing? 25 guys maximum because 15 of them are gonna be lapped at least twice. The guys who are finishing tenth or fifteenth they are good riders. They get lapped but not at dangerous speeds. You see some of the guys who got lapped like that before are now coming good, guys like Geoff May. They are coming forward, they belong there. Some of the other guys, they seem to think it is their birthright to be there but they don't belong in that class. The AMA should make a rule like Superstock. For a start the bikes are cheaper. Pay them money to race, take away some of the Superbike purse. The factory guys don't need that money. The privateers need the money, give them the money and tell them to race Superstock. Or, if they wanna race Superbike, then the AMA should make the cut-off much more competitive. Say there's only 25 guys on the grid or there's a steep percentage, something like 105%.

The AMA like to pay back the privateers and that's nice, and that's why the privateers enter the Superbike class. They come in 36th place and they get a thousand bucks! But they should take the top 36 qualifiers and pay them but say to the guys below 25th place or the cut off percentage, sorry, here's your money but you can't race but try again next week. This way they've made money, as they should because I was a privateer once and it's hard. But they've saved equipment and the class is safer. The leaders can get on with their race unaffected by having to pass real slow guys and the racing isn't dangerous. The most dangerous thing you do all weekend is pass lappers. It's not doing big qualifying laps or anything it's passing the slow guys because you have no control over the situation.

Some guys are good at passing lapped traffic. Guys like Mladin, DuHamel and Yates, some of these guys are really specialised in traffic. They shove it in there, now and then Yates makes a tough move—he's very aggressive in traffic and sometimes problems happen. That's unfortunate.

Maybe we need to get off this subject. I get worked up about it because I left America because of that. The racing is fantastic without it and the tracks are good but I don't want any part of it if it's gonna stay like that. The AMA, you talk to them, they aren't gonna change the rules. So I don't want to ride there, end of story.

You come here to World Superbike and there's no lapped traffic. It's a wonderful series and I missed it.

SuperBikePlanet: How much did you miss WSB?

BB: Too much!

SuperBikePlanet: WHat did you miss?

BB: The racing.

SuperBikePlanet: Just the racing?

BB: And the travelling to different countries—you see the different people. The racing is fantastic and all the riders finish on the same lap. The racing at the front is usually spectacular and I missed it.

When you come to World Superbike you don't have privateers like in the AMA, they couldn't travel the world like that. These riders here are decent riders that's why they get the sponsorship so they can travel the world.

You have to have the AMA for privateers to start, you gotta have a start somewhere, as you do in England, Australia, South Africa. Otherwise none of us would be racing, that you have to understand. But you can't just throw these guys in with the big boys in the Superbike class. It's better to only have two rows of Superbike guys who will all battle for the lead. That makes better TV. I watch Superbike racing to see the guys fighting for the lead, no-one watches Superbikes to see some guy getting lapped twice a race. When I watch the AMA I get so mad because you see the guys making great lap times and then suddenly their losing a second and a half here because of lapped traffic and suddenly the tight bunch of lead riders are all strung out and the spectacle is over. I'm angry about that.

SuperBikePlanet: What do other racers think about this, is it just a Ben Bostrom hobby-horse?

BB: I can guarantee that the top ten guys in AMA don't appreciate having to lap really slow guys like that. No way because it is dangerous for them.

SuperBikePlanet: Ok, that's enough about lapping. Let's get back to age. It seems from what you've said earlier that you had a bit of a realisation when you got to 30. You've understood that maybe you've been burning the candle at both ends.

BB: Burning myself out! Especially when you are at home you have all your friends and all your toys and maybe you play too hard. I was away in Europe for three years and I guess when I got back I tried to make up for lost time. I have this theory that life's already way too short so I've maybe tried to cram too much into it to soon. Then at one point, when I hit 30, I got smart. I asked myself, what makes me happy? Racing at the front, that's what makes me happy. I like that, I gotta do that again. And how many years can you do that for man? I don't know, maybe five more years. You have the rest of your life to go surf, climb and do what ever you want to do. So why not take a step back and don't burn yourself out. Just go race bikes, relax, enjoy that thing for five years. I think it hurts a lot for any rider, when they retire to wish you had done something different because youth passes by an you can never get that time back. Whereas when you are 40 or 50 you can go fishing or skiing, it's like a new youth. When you are that age nothing is over.

SuperBikePlanet: So here you are back in Europe but you've not exactly set the world alight this time. What's going on here? You're not on the only Honda that hasn't achieved it's potential.

BB: You know I've been watching the guys in America, the Honda guys there are really good people. I don't ride for them but I still want to see them do well and it sucks to watch them ride around in sixth, seventh you know. I don't like to see it anymore than they do. But that's where they are at. It's a good chance for Honda to step up and build something that does whatever it needs to do better. Whatever it is, whether it's steer better or accelerate better, it needs to be done. Put a little bit into it. I see the factories working really hard.

This year Honda have changed the program around and each teams bike looks very different. And that parts actually pretty cool but it would be cooler to be racing at the front.

SuperBikePlanet: Are Honda's competing against each other or is there some sharing of parts and information?

BB: No, I think there's some camaraderie, you help each other. If I got a problem I ask American Honda and say what do you guys think? They maybe have an answer and it's nice to work like that. Simon (Buckmaster Ben's crew chief) will ask Honda UK for ideas. He phones them up and they tell him everything, they tell him what did work and what didn't work. It's funny to see the different answers form the different Honda camps. We're all working together because we are all getting our butt kicked. If we were competing to win the championship we might not share so much but this case is different, we're not even in the same series so we help each other. That's pretty neat. If we were kicking ass we'd tell the other Honda guys in the other series about what we've got because it's important to see Honda do well everywhere.

SuperBikePlanet: I've seen Daisuke Hashimot (American Honda) over here today in the Ten Kate Honda camp.

BB: Yep, I know he's here and I know why, because they need help! He's in the right place, he's in tent of the most successful Honda team in the world right now, period. Even though we plan to kick their asses before the season's over. Right!

SuperBikePlanet: You talk about the camaraderie between teams in different series but have you been talking to the guys running Hondas over here?

BB: They are direct competitors, yes, they've spoken back and forth with these guys. We've been in Klaffi's garage and they've been in ours. And also Ten Kate - they've helped, with parts and stuff. We are part of the same family - it's all for the common good, we need to catch up. Suzuki have built a great bike.

SuperBikePlanet: And tested it thoroughly ...

BB: Exactly! It's been tested wonderfully. Yoshi done a super job developing the bike. But Honda missed the boat a bit with testing, I think because they changed the program. Before HRC would do so much of the testing on the bike and do so much of the development and then give you the bike and that's how you took them. But now they've said "OK, we're gonna sell you these kit parts and you can run whatever suspension you want in the race. Change things and let's see who comes up with the best answers." But because we had to wait for the kit parts first we got behind. And as they started coming then every team has ended in the same boat. You go to Ten Kate and they are still developing their bike, same in America.

SuperBikePlanet: So when did you actually go testing with the actual bike you were racing this year?

BB: At the first race! And we're testing every race weekend still.

SuperBikePlanet: What problems have you had and what have you solved?

BB: They change. First, we weren't sure about the front end. We weren't sure about brakes. Then we weren't sure about the linkage for the swing arm. Then we needed to work on the airbox. Literally it's been everything, trying to narrow it down.

SuperBikePlanet: You're using Nissin brakes, Ohlins suspension, who's building your engines?

BB: Chris Mayhew, he builds the motors for Karl Harris in the UK.

SuperBikePlanet: And how are those engines?

BB: Coming along. We were down on power at the start of the season and it was hurting really bad. Our chassis started coming on really good but we needed more motor. It sucks when you have a great chassis but not the motor to put inside of it.

SuperBikePlanet: The reverse of the Ten Kate situation when they had a stonking motor but no chassis!

BB: It's true. But now everything is coming on but we still need a bit more in both areas. But also the rider, the rider needs to come on some. I'm growing with the bike, and the Pirellis.

SuperBikePlanet: Let's talk tyres, you've ridden them all, what is your take on the one-make tire rule?

BB: The Pirellis are, er, fun to ride on. I'll give them that but I would not want to race that tyre against any other manufacturer because they have a lot of catching up to do. But as far as the series being on one tyre brand I think that's great. I remember how it was, a few guys on great Dunlops and just two Michelin teams - they got great tyres. There were other riders who were going fast, like I saw Bussei he was pushing really hard. There was many, I just named off one guy. I'd see them ride and man they were pushing hard. But it was a shame because the rider was never going to stand a chance because of his tyres. He was always going to be two or three seconds off the pace. It's not fair. They came in with the one tyre rule and suddenly some of those guys who were at the back are up there at the front. Before there was only ten of us who had good tyres and we just killed the rest. Now there's 20 guys and they are all there, they can all be within a second. It shows you that lots of these guys had real talent but it was never given a chance to show. It wasn't fair.

SuperBikePlanet: Have you had to adjust your riding for the tyres?

BB: Yes, and I am still adjusting it. The tyres are weird to ride on because the back just doesn't have any grip. It slides and spins at the same time. I used to enter a corner really fast but if I do that now I'd be sideways all the way into the corner and it just doesn't work. So you have to adjust your braking, you have to pick the thing up quicker to get on top of your tyre. You have to adjust a lot.

Normally a bike sits low at the front with a high rear to help it steer. But here it's kinda funny looking at all the bikes because they are all sitting so flat - absolutely like a chopper - to try and get some grip at the rear. Here, the rear tyre is more important than the front.

SuperBikePlanet: So this smoking around faster bends we've seen this season this is a function of the Pirelli tyres and their lack of rear grip.

BB: You try not to do that but you can't help it - you're losing time but sometimes you have to do it to steer the bike. If you see a guy smoking the rear it's usually out of desperation but it's not the right way to ride a bike.

SuperBikePlanet: What's your prediction for the rest of the season, Ben?

BB: Keep watching because we're coming for them. I guess it is always easier to start at the bottom, it's harder to start at the top and go down hill.

My team is fantastic, they are all new guys for me. They are great guys and the team is cool, even the paint fumes! It's an interesting team but it's a good team. We were a little disorganised at the start of the season because we had new guys, new rider new bike. It's so much and it made it difficult. But this is a good team, used to finishing high up. We are based in Bologna but we may be coming back to the UK. I'm based in Italy just because of the weather.

SuperBikePlanet: Really, just because of the weather?

BB: The weather in the UK is crap, every time I come here it has rained. OK, I can handle it, if I go to the Lake District (a National Park in the UK) for some rock climbing and it rains then I can just go for a cream tea or something, I can enjoy that. But now I am getting really into road cycling and if you go out and it just rains then what's the point?

SuperBikePlanet: That's why we are so into Mountain Biking here!

BB: yeah! That's the only reason why I don't live here. I like England it's nice it has a lot of plus points but I am an outdoor person and the weather's not good enough for that. I want to be outside I don't want to be rained on all the time.

SuperBikePlanet: So if you are not playing as much what are you doing?

BB: I'm training really hard. I'm cycling, running and swimming. I just learned to swim.

SuperBikePlanet: Really? You couldn't swim before?

BB: No, and it's just so cool I can't believe I didn't learn to swim earlier, my whole life I never learned how to swim it's just a joke. I took my first swimming lesson last week! Now I've had four lessons, all the breathing and stuff it's great. May 15th I started training. It's so nice to swim I can't believe I haven't done it before. Same with running, I've never really run in my life so now I am learning how to do that properly.

SuperBikePlanet: No weights or stuff?

BB: I hate that, you'll never find me in a gym I hate it so much. And there's no point, I'm not trying to be Mr Universe I'm trying to get fit.

SuperBikePlanet: When did this new regime start?

BB: Last week.

SuperBikePlanet: Really, only last week?

BB: Yes, it sounds kind of weak but yes, I just started, really. But I am determined to get really fit, I want to do the Kona Ironman event, which is a triathlon, cycling, swimming and running. I said I could do it, when you are drinking it's really easy to spit that out you can easy do that in ten hours and so now I have to get myself together to back that up!

(The event is a 2.4-mile ocean swim, 112-mile bike race and 26.2-mile run. Competitors have 17 hours to finish. Held in October in Hawaii the winning times for this event are in the eight hour bracket so ten hours is a tough target.)

I fell in love with Bicycling last year and ... I just fell in love with it. But when I got over here with the bike in a box I had so much going on that it just sat there - still in the box. I got it out last week and I still love it, I can't believe I've left it this long. That thing shouldn't have sat in the box for so long, I'm going to make up for lost time.

BB: It is and I'd forgotten that. If you go running or cycling or even swimming you get to a point when you start to feel really tired and you have to dig very deep. That's like in racing. Every racer has got to a point where 20 laps of the race has gone and they are feeling pretty tired and it's easier to just give up than push hard for the rest of the race. So, this kind of training is more relevant to racing.

I started training just last week and this is the first event since my new hard-core regime started and already I am feeling the benefit. I'm really putting in five to seven hours a day. The bike's developing so now the rider's developing. That's a problem the team can spend millions developing a bike and making it the best but if the rider's brain is not right up there it makes no difference, the bike won't win races.

It's a nice time, I'm coming together and the bike's coming together and I'm happier that way. I've enjoyed it here even at the back but I am going to enjoy it more when I start getting in the top ten again. I know it's coming - I'm not worried.

SuperBikePlanet: A reborn Ben?

BB: Yes, that's a cool way to put it.