PIETRI ON THE PODIUM AT ROAD AMERICA, BARNES FIFTH

Team Roadracingworld.com overcame adversity to claim a tremendous double top-five result in this weekend's AMA Superstock race at Road America.

The weekend started on a down note when Chris Ulrich, who entered the weekend ranked fourth in the Superstock points chase, was injured in a Thursday practice crash and was forced to join teammate Santiago Villa on the shelf. However, reigning Latin American and Venezuelan Superbike champ Robertino Pietri and super-sub Michael Barnes came through and stepped up in his absence.

On Saturday Pietri earned another front row grid position by posting the fourth fastest time of qualifying at 2:16.431 aboard his Pirelli-shod GSX-R1000. Barnes lined up a row behind after clocking the seventh quickest time of the session at 2:17.398.

After the two settled into the fight for the podium, Pietri made a late push past Alastair Seeley for third on the penultimate lap and held on for his first-career AMA podium finish. He crossed the stripe just over three seconds behind race winner Blake Young on the Team M4 EMGO Suzuki.

'Barney' scored a fifth-place finish, making good on Ulrich's pre-race goal for the team to place both riders in the top five in the 10-lap race.

Pietri said, "It was fully wet at the beginning and my visor was fogging up a little bit. Towards the end starts drying a little bit, but since the fog was there I couldn't really see, so it took me a little bit to get into a rhythm. The first four laps were a disaster, I think I was back in seventh or something. Barney passed me and I knew I could roll with him because in the morning I was faster than him and he passed me and he looked very smooth while I was like fighting with the bike. I said, 'Okay, you need to relax, breathe in, start hitting your marks and ride like you did in the morning'. You know I started doing it and I started to feel I was catching the guys at the front a little bit and it was great.

"I'm super excited. This is my first podium and this is my dad's birthday today too, so happy birthday!"

Ulrich explained what happened in his fall. "I've been healthy for a few years now and it seems like we've had pretty good luck crashing lately. It was one of those deals where we looked at what we did last year here in the wet and it was because we went out on Thursday and fine-tuned the bike and tried some settings. With that in mind, we did the same thing this year; I tried some different suspension stuff and we were going okay -- we were already faster than we qualified last year with minimal effort -- and I didn't feel I was pushing that hard. I don't think I was taking any risks because I knew in the back of my head it was only Thursday and we didn't have to. I was just exploring and seeing how everything goes.

"The lap before I went pretty quick and I just went through Turn 6, up shifted into second, went into 7 and just cracked the throttle and it spun. I knew I was in trouble when I was holding onto the bars, looking down at the gas tank. It spat me off, I hit my head a little bit. I landed on my left side, hand-first. I bent my hand back to the point where it blew a 3mm hole in my hand. But that finger was fine. I ended up breaking my second metacarpal and my thumb.

"It's unfortunate. We're out for this weekend for sure but we've got six weeks until Laguna for Superbike and we're going to do that and I should be 100% by Mid-Ohio."

Team Roadracingworld.com Suzuki will be back in action at Laguna Seca as the AMA series plays host to the MotoGP World Championship on July 18-20.

INJURED VILLA OUT FOR 2008 SEASON

Team Roadracingworld.com Suzuki's Santiago Villa will miss the rest of the 2008 AMA road racing season due to injuries suffered in a crash Sunday at Miller Motorsports Park in Utah.

Villa, a promising racer from Bogota, Colombia with several Colombian National Championships to his name, joined Team Roadracingworld.com for 2008 and has been competing in the AMA Superstock Championship. Villa broke his femur and his hip at Miller Motorsports Park and doctors have told him he will be unable to race for three to four months while he recovers.

Santiago hopes to return to racing at Daytona in October.

"Santiago was making steady progress despite injuries from his crash in April at Fontana and the serious burns he suffered--while riding for another team--in a refueling accident at Daytona in October, 2007," said Team Roadracingworld.com's Chris Ulrich. "He was soldiering on like the true motorcycle racer that he is and was making progress at the difficult tracks. It's a bummer for us and for Santiago. We know he wants to be out there competing and learning. It's a big disappointment for us because he is a pleasure to work with and we were pleased with his efforts. We hope his recovery goes to plan so he can get back to racing, which is something he loves doing and certainly has a talent for."

TOP FIVE IN SUPERSTOCK POINTS FOR PIETRI AND ULRICH OF TEAM ROADRACINGWORLD.COM

Team Roadracingworld.com Suzuki rung up two more top-ten finishes in AMA Superstock competition on Saturday at Miller Motorsports Park, near Salt Lake City, UT. Despite a rocky weekend, Robertino Pietri and Chris Ulrich came through in the 9-lap race to finish sixth and seventh, respectively.

The two leave Utah ranked in the top five in the championship hunt, with Ulrich fourth with 128 points and Pietri fifth at 113.

Venezuelan Pietri qualified on the second row with a quick time of 2:51.421 aboard his Pirelli-shod GSX-R1000, while Ulrich was a row further back, qualifying ninth at 2:51.697. Teammate Santiago Villa qualified on the fourth row, posting the 15th best time of the session at 2:55.070.

Pietri, reigning Latin American and Venezuelan Superbike champ, held down his qualifying position most of the race and ultimately finished in sixth position. Ulrich fought his way up from 10th early and chased Pietri to the checkered flag, finishing just over a second back in seventh.

Villa climbed up to as high as 13th before registering a DNF and being awarded 25th after completing 7 laps.

Afterwards, both Pietri and Ulrich expressed disappointment, expecting even more this weekend.

"It was a very tough weekend," Pietri remarked. "We didn't expect it to be to be this tough. We came in here after a couple good runs and we went great here last year, and last year Fontana and Infineon were my weakest tracks. The expectation for this race was pretty high even though it was a new track with the longer configuration. We knew were behind because we didn't test here and we ran intoa lot of problems. My guys worked so hard and I really appreciated their
effort.

"We qualified sixth and finished sixth. That's not too bad and we leave here in fifth place in the championship. It was a great team effort but we're ready to move onto Road America."

Ulrich said, "I'm upset. For me, we had some technical problems at the start of this four-day marathon and it put us behind the eight ball. We were catching up and catching up but it was a little too little, too late. For sure I'm disappointed, I don't feel I should be racing for seventh or eighth, I should be up in the top five. The gap to the frontrunners that tested here was a little disturbing.

"We're going to go the next round and put the hammer down. We're going to charge at Road America pretty hard. I'm not finishing seventh there."

Team Roadracingworld.com Suzuki will be back in action next weekend at Road America in Elkhart Lake, WI on June 6-8.