(AMA Pro Racing Release) Yamaha USA’s Eric Bostrom picked the perfect moment to claim his first Lockhart Phillips USA Formula Xtreme pole position of the year, stealing the honor away from rival Josh Hayes with just moments remaining in the final qualifying session of the season today at Mid-Ohio. Bostrom’s late 1:26.628 saw him leap past the title-leading Erion Honda star just seconds after he had posted a 1:26.850 that momentarily had him on top of the charts.

Bostrom’s pole point moves him to within just two points of Hayes, meaning that many of the pre-race strategic possibilities have been wiped off the slate. The 2006 title race seems destined to come down to the checkered flag: if either man wins tomorrow’s 16-lap affair, they are assured of the crown no matter what the other one does.

“I haven’t been excited about running a qualifier on that 600 all year, and at a bunch of races we avoided the qualifier altogether,” Bostrom admitted after the session. “This race it was unavoidable.

“It was really nice to be able to pull that one out. It’s a crazy little bike to run a qualifier on because you have to commit so hard, so early on the throttle. I imagine it could catch it you out sooner but the bike took it. As always, there’s more there, but probably not much more. That was a pretty sweet lap.”

Commenting on being allowed to simply focus on beating Hayes tomorrow rather than also having to count laps led, Bostrom remarked, “It’s really cool. We’ll just go out there and race for it. It’s excellent. Our race set-up is really good. The track came in really good this afternoon. Hopefully we can have a good racetrack for the race.”

Meanwhile, third qualifier Jason DiSalvo saw his title hopes take a huge hit this afternoon when he failed to secure his ninth FX pole of the season with a best time of 1:26.628.

Even if DiSalvo leads the most laps en route to his second FX race win, he’ll still fall short of the crown if either Hayes or Bostrom finishes second. In fact, Hayes would even beat DiSalvo via the second tiebreaker (most second-place results), if DiSalvo were to win and lead the most laps while Hayes finished third (and someone other than Bostrom in second), with both men finishing even in points and wins.