Copyright 2003, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc.

The 2004 Honda CBR1000RR Superbike is impressing its new rider, American Honda’s Ben Bostrom.

“I think it’s incredible. It’s the funnest and scariest bike I’ve ever been on,” said Bostrom Monday afternoon during the Dunlop tire test at Daytona International Speedway. “You can pretty much spin the tire anywhere. It’s really good on the front. I’ve never ridden anything close to it; it’s that amazing.”

Asked what part of the bike was better than the other bikes he has ridden, Bostrom said, “Every part of it. The motor is so fast. It’s pretty electric. It’s really soft in my hands. It doesn’t vibrate very much. I can’t get used to revving it that high. It keeps pulling from basically nowhere all the way to the rev-limiter. It just pulls all the way through. It steers well. It does everything good so far.

“I’m not used to the bike, and we’ve got a few things to work out on it, but right now I’m smiling, I’m excited every time I get on there.”

Bostrom added that he already has more front-end feel (the missing element in Bostrom’s 2003 AMA Superbike campaign) from the CBR1000RR than the RC51. “Yeah, I can ride the front on this thing. It’s pretty neat,” said Bostrom.

At post time (3:30 p.m. Eastern Time), Bostrom had the fastest time of the test so far at a 1:48.981, about 0.5-second ahead of Yoshimura Suzuki’s Mat Mladin at 1:49.438.