Eric Bostrom Closer to Full Fitness

Henny Ray Abrams | November 17, 2010

BROOKLYN, NY, NOV 17 – Fifty days after Eric Bostrom suffered a nearly fatal laceration to his left thigh in the penultimate race of the 2010 AMA Pro Road Racing series, his recovery continues slowly but steadily.In the last corner of the final lap of the Saturday race at Barber Motorsports Park, Bostrom was taken out by an overzealous Brett McCormick (Jordan Suzuki). A jagged footpeg sliced through Bostrom’s Alpinestar leathers and dug deep into his thigh, doing severe nerve damage and nearly severing his femoral artery. Had that happened, Bostrom likely would have bled to death within minutes.Rushed to a hospital in Birmingham, Bostrom had his thigh stitched up, with both external and internal stitches. The wound resembled nothing so much as a shark bite.Seven weeks since the surgery and Bostrom’s fitness is returning, haltingly. He’s put in hundreds of hours on the bicycle and the swelling is continuing to disappear from his thigh. The downside is that the thigh is still “without feeling, I guess you could say. It’s less than numb. It’s not even right to say it’s a numbing sensation. It’s just not there.”Bostrom’s doctors have assured him the nerves will eventually regenerate for a 100% recovery, though there was strong initial concern with the “lymphatic system being severed on kind of a critical area and that there might be long term swelling affects. But it seems that everything’s going really fantastic with everything taking and the swelling continues to recede. So I think that now it’s just a matter of time for the scar tissue to break up under the surface of the skin and also for the swelling to recede all the way back to normal. So that part’s all really positive.”There continues to be some swelling in the tendons and left knee, which is causing some pain and is a limiting factor, “but there’s nothing I can’t do right now,” he said.At one month out his skin had recovered about 50% of its strength and elasticity, “so obviously we’re a good bit beyond that. And I feel like just watching my heart rate on the bicycle, I feel there’s some long term affects and a few things going on that elevate the heart rate and have some basically negative effects on the body. But I think it’s one of those things I just have to be tough on it. And I might be 100% in three months from now, but right now maybe I’m 95% and that’s plenty good enough to get most everything done.”With the external stitches long since removed, and the internal stitches dissolved, Bostrom has added core training and stretching to his recovery regimen, “not only on the stretching itself, but also expanding my knowledge into what I’m doing, just because I think it’s a healthy lifestyle to stay flexible. This injury also has made it really apparent that I need try to keep some flexibility in that area, because every night when I wake up in the morning it’s tight again and I have to try to limber up. And it’s basically tight from the ankle to the groin, so that probably continues all the way up into the lower back. Again, there’s nothing really limiting. I’m not as flexible on left side of my body as I am on the right side right now, but there’s nothing limiting from getting that. It’s just a matter of time.”Though he hasn’t been on a Superbike, Bostrom has done some riding and “that keeps a smile on your face. So I’m looking forward to getting back on the bike soon again.”Again, I’m not in perfect fitness for doing the hard core dirt bike riding that you end up using that inner thigh area a lot, but I think within a few weeks I will be. I’m going to be dirt riding with my dad and Johnny Murphree and some other racers, Brent Landis, different folks this weekend when I go up to northern California this weekend.”With the 2011 season-opener at Daytona about three and a half months away, Bostrom is training for his first full season of Superbike racing since 2008, when he finished fourth overall on the factory Yamaha. Bostrom spent much of 2009 managing real estate investments in South America, a foray into the business world that ultimately proved more frustrating than rewarding.This season, he eased back into Superbike racing with a limited schedule on the Cycle World Attack Racing Yoshimura Suzuki GSX-R1000. That whet his appetite enough that he’s “extremely motivated to rejoin the pro superbike field” on a full-time basis. “And right now we’re basically looking at a few different options on how to do so. Thankfully I have Sho-Air and Jason Britton’s No Limit, Team No Limit, behind me. Those are all the really positive things I have going right now, my health and some good backing from Sho-Air and No Limit. Hopefully we can make something really good of that and bring more excitement into the AMA Superbike class in 2011.”For 2011 he’s also looking forward to a second season of “Café Racer” on Discovery HD Theater. Ben and Eric Bostrom were featured in the initial season, which can still be seen on HD Theater.”We’re working on it,” Bostrom said. “It sounds like the show has been received extremely well and everyone’s excited about it, both at Discovery and Chet Burks Productions, the whole crew there. So they’re looking forward to a second season and possibly beyond and they’ve already said they want Ben and I to be involved in it, so that will be exciting. We weren’t on the first episodes at all, and then we’ve been on sort of on and off.”Well, hopefully we’ll have a bigger and bigger part with the show. I’ve been really excited. You have your concerns when you’re working with whatever you’re doing thinking I hope this turns out well. And I hope that production does a good job with it. The whole experience has been really positive. I’ve been extremely pleased with the end product.”