Ben Bostrom, the winner of the AMA Pro National Guard Superbike race July 25 at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, hopes he will be able to ride at the next AMA Round August 13-15 at VIRginia International Raceway. But recent surgery to repair his badly injured left thumb may prevent him from continuing his recent strong run of form. Bostrom suffered his injury when he crashed during provisional qualifying July 16 at Mid-Ohio. The former AMA Superbike Champion broke his left thumb and detached the only tendon he had remaining in the thumb (the other tendon was destroyed during a crash 10 years ago). He continued riding during that weekend and scored a close runner-up finish in Race One and a fourth in Race Two. One week later Bostrom came to Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, took pole position and won the race, his first Superbike victory in six years, in spite of running off track mid-race. The next morning, July 26, Bostrom underwent surgery at the hands of famed orthopedic surgeon Dr. Arthur Ting at his clinic in Fremont, California, to repair the thumb. “It’s pretty cool,” Bostrom told Roadracingworld.com August 2. “They sink these threads into your bone, because the tendon tore from the bone and needed a new anchor. It’s amazing that they hold, but they do. “But I have a lot of pain coming from the pin they drove down under my fingernail, through the first bone and then the second flange bone. So my whole thumb’s got a pin driven through it, and man, it’s sore, dude.” Bostrom said the pin must remain in place through the race weekend at VIR, which will make racing there difficult because the pin locks his thumb straight. “It’s worse than straight. It’s actually bent back because the tendon shrank [during the time it was detached]. So it’s actually curved backwards. Since it’s my dead thumb I was able to grip by pushing into the palm, now it just sticks straight out. I’m not sure what we’re going to do. We’re going to have to do something on the bike to make my hand fit on there.” Considering Bostrom’s chances at winning the 2010 AMA Superbike Championship are a long shot, at best (he currently sits fifth in the point standings and trails leader Josh Hayes by 88 points with just six races and a maximum of 183 points still up for grabs), why not skip the races at VIR and continuing healing for one month before heading to the next round, September 3-5 at New Jersey Motorsports Park? “I’ve considered that,” said Bostrom. “I want to ride so bad. If for some reason I can’t ride I won’t, but I’m going to try so hard. I want to ride so bad, especially now since Laguna we’ve got our best motor. We’ve got more of the parts from Josh’s bike. It’s like, f–k! Now I really want to race because the bike’s up to snuff. It wants to win. It’s ready. It’s proven ready. It’s a winner. I’ve got to win for the boys. They’ve been working so hard all season. It’s time to win.” Asked to put a number on the likelihood he will race at VIR, Bostrom said, “85 percent.”