Laguna Seca: Ducati Austin qualifying notes

Monterey (California) - July 10, 2004: Second quickest in the morning's free practice, Eric Bostrom slipped down to seventh during qualifying but remains optimistic about making a charge on his Ducati 999R at the challenging track where he has previously garnered two superbike victories.

Technical difficulties kept the Parts Unlimited Ducati Austin team from taking full advantage of their afternoon qualifying session in near-perfect weather conditions.

"It was a frustrating qualifying session," commented Eric. "Our number one bike had a problem so we spent a bit of time working on it. We've been testing the two bikes with very different set-ups and it was the one I prefer that had a problem. I only got three timed laps with the bike I was uncomfortable on so I can't say this is the best qualifying I've ever had. I went a full second slower than I did this morning!

"We've got a lot of work to do now. Overall I guess we've had a lack of track time, so we'll just have to do the best we can tomorrow," said the 27-year-old.

Racing Manager Tom Bodenbach added, "Qualifying was rough. We set up the second bike very differently so he could try it out and see if it was a direction worth pursuing. It turned out he wasn't comfortable with it but his only option was to finish the qualifying session on it."

Tomorrow's AMA Superbike 28-lap (100 km) race is scheduled for 2:00 p.m. (Pacific Daylight Time).

TIMES: 1. B Bostrom (Honda) 1:24.906; 2. Zemke (Honda) 1:25.164; 3. Mladin (Suzuki) 1:25.222; 4. Duhamel (Honda) 1:25.866; 5. Yates (Suzuki) 1:26.273; 6. Hayes (Kawasaki) 1:26.433; 7. E Bostrom (Ducati) 1:27.986; etc.

-www.ducatiaustin.com