WIKLE SECOND IN AMA PRO SUPERSPORT EAST POINTS

Team Roadracingworld.com Suzuki continued to make progress during the penultimate round of the 2009 AMA Pro Road Racing season at Virginia International Raceway.

Chris Ulrich found some more positives with his '09 GSX-R1000 and left the weekend optimistic that the team is headed in the right direction while Russ Wikle picked up a top-ten result in SuperSport to enter the final race of the East Division season ranked second in the points.

Ulrich helped initiate a new program by legendary tuners Yoshimura by running a customer engine at VIR as Yosh prepares to offer those services in the paddock next season.

The Californian qualified 14^th fastest at 1:26.856 for the weekend's twin 50-mile AMA Pro American Superbike races.

Saturday's final was a grueling affair with the bike's set-up proving uncooperative, further exasperating the difficulties created by the hot and humid conditions along with a less than ideal start. Chris battled up from 18^th after the opening lap to finish 13^th.

Sunday's setting was much improved but another imperfect start and an early incident that tore off his knee puck prevented him from finishing higher than 12^th.

"I think there are a lot of positives from the weekend," Ulrich said. "Right off the bat we got a new engine from Yoshimura and that helped quite a bit. It's a new deal for them; they're going to offer customer engines next year and they wanted us to try it out. I was happy to be a part of that and my guys were on board and positive about it.

"We looked pretty good in qualifying on Friday but we went with a different combination and different rear tire on Saturday. It turned out over race distance it was really difficult to ride the bike that way. We faded and it was physically draining; my right shoulder was very sore after that.

"This morning we changed the gear back and did some other stuff. We went to the shorter gear and it made life easier so we went back to Friday's setting but it turned out in the race we needed a little bit taller gearing. It cost us some speed down the front straight but everywhere else it was pretty good.

"Yesterday's race was so hard but we got a 13^th. Today's was a lot easier but we shot ourselves in the foot both days with bad starts. Today I got in on the first lap in the chicane and stuck my knee into the curb and my knee puck went flying off and ripped my suit open. I was pretty lucky Dainese has pretty good protection there and I didn't damage my knee. It just meant I had to ride the race without a knee puck but I still went faster than yesterday's race and the gap was closer."

Ulrich heads into the season finale ranked 12^th with 139 points.

Russ Wikle continued to show competitive form in the AMA Pro SuperSport class, qualifying on the second row aboard his Suzuki GSX-R600 at 1:31.404 in eighth position and then picking up a tenth-place race result in Sunday's race.

While he was unable to challenge for a podium finish at VIR like he has on multiple occasions this season, Wikle sits second in the SuperSport championship standings on 90 points with just one East Division round remaining.

Chris said, "Russ struggled a little bit. I think the time off will do him some good because he can go back to being a teenager for a little bit, go home and hang out with his friends, and then come out fresh in New Jersey. Sometimes in racing when you spend so much time on the road and if you're not really used to it, it can burn you out. That said, Russell is still doing well. We all worked with him at the WERA weekend and tried to help educate him about what different changes do to his motorcycle and we got some positive things out of that."

Unfortunately, Colombian Santiago Villa suffered a setback this weekend, injuring himself in a practice crash while riding for a Moto-GT team not associated with Team Roadracingworld.com and being forced to sit out the two AMA Pro Daytona SportBike races.

"Santiago broke his leg," Ulrich said. "That's tough luck for the toughest man in racing. He did the right thing this time instead of gutting it because there could be some serious damage."

Team Roadracingworld.com Suzuki will head to the 2009 AMA Pro Road Racing season finale at New Jersey Motorsports Park on September 4-6.

"I think New Jersey is going to be good for us," Ulrich said. "We've got Thursday practice and we've got the bikes to a decent baseline. We'll work on our game a little bit. We've got a couple weeks off so I'll get some training in and have some fun and them come out swinging at New Jersey.

"I'd like to close the season out strong for the whole team. I worked hard to develop that K9 by myself and now we've got some good help. This year has gone really fast and it's been a weird year but we've got positives things going."