From a press release issued by Eric Bostrom’s publicist:

“General E” Laguna Seca report

Just like that, Aaron Yates’ mistake ruined Eric Bostrom’s Laguna Seca weekend. The American Suzuki rider low-sided going into the very first turn in the very first lap of the very first World Superbike race at Laguna Seca this weekend. Aaron’s interesting and optimistic line going into turn one proved costly, for others at least. The resulting low-side took out multiple racers, including fan and AMA Superbike title favorite, Eric Bostrom. Eric suffered a badly dislocated right shoulder, as well as injuring his neck and back. He was unable to race either World Superbike race as a result of this incident and it is unknown at this time what effect it will have on the next AMA round in less than two weeks time, much less the rest of his AMA Superbike season. “I feel like a chicken that got caught in a tractor’s rut. For now I’m just planning on taking it easy for a couple of weeks to try and get ready for Mid-Ohio.

“But I’m pretty disappointed because until Sunday I was having a tough time with tires. We didn’t have a tire that worked on our bike. The only tire that I liked, we couldn’t run because it had given my bike tons of chatter. So we made some pretty big changes and finally on Sunday morning I felt I was able to race with that tire that I had wanted to run all weekend. I was really pumped because I could finally run consistently good lap times; lap times that the winners ended up running. But in the end, I didn’t get the chance to try it out. It’s a shame, because I think we honestly had the chance to win both races.”

Yates, however, was able to remount and race in both World Superbike races, finishing 6th in race one and then crashing again in race two. Always one to take the classy approach, Eric was hesitant to comment about the racing incident with Yates, “I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. It happens.” Although perhaps one of Eric’s fans said it best when he emailed Eric today at his website and said, “It really sucks to see such an awesome, safe, and consistent rider as yourself go down so hard due to someone else’s careless riding.”

Yes, it does.