TEAM ROADRACINGWORLD.COM ANSWERS THE CHALLENGE AT MID-OHIO

Team Roadracingworld.com Suzuki battled through a difficult weekend at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course for Round 8 of the 2009 AMA Pro Road Racing season.

Chris Ulrich gained valuable experience with his developing '09 GSX-R1000 American Superbike during the stop at a venue where he boasts a past AMA Superstock victory, but misfortune in qualifying and the races prevented him from showing his full potential.

Ulrich wasn't able to get in his planned fast lap when Superbike qualifying was red flagged and concluded a few minutes short of the scheduled time. As a result, he started from 14^th on the grid with a fast time of 1:28.183.

The Californian picked up a position in the opening race, finishing a lonely 13^th and hoped to improve on Sunday after further dialing in his racebike with the knowledge gained in Saturday's 50-mile final. However, an electrical problem dashed those hopes and ended his race early.

"In qualifying we put the soft tire on too late and that was pretty much the deal," Ulrich explained. "The red flag came out for the incident when David Anthony crashed, so that kind of caught us out. We went out with three minutes to go and were trying to push hard. The balance of the bike has been improved but we're still lacking in some areas with the machine and we're trying to sort those out before Topeka.

"We learned some stuff in Saturday's race and applied that to the Sunday race but the bike had s small technical issue that put us out of the race, unfortuantely."

Ulrich is currently ranked 12^th in the American Superbike title race with 100 points.

AMA Pro SuperSport East Division title hopeful Russ Wikle had a similarly tough outing. After qualifying ninth at 1:32.935, Wikle was running seventh in the race aboard his GSX-R600 but crashed out while exiting Turn 1 on lap 6. Despite the spill, he holds down third in the championship battle with 63 points.

Ulrich remarked, "Tough luck for Russ and that hurts in the championship but what can you do? Sometimes you have bad weekends and this happened to be a bad one for us."

Colombian Santiago Villa rung up 20^th and 27^th place finishes in the weekend's AMA Pro Daytona SportBike finals while Wikle came home in 26^th and 29^th. Wikle is 23^rd in the points at 38 while Villa is 28^th with 22.

On July 31-August 2 Team Roadracingworld.com Suzuki will travel to Heartland Park Topeka, in Topeka, KS for Round 9 of the 2009 AMA Pro Road Racing championship.

"We're going into the unknown," Ulrich said of the new addition to the calendar. "Russell did a track day there last week and I've been there doing two-seaters. We're going to go out there and see if we can make something happen. We'll strive to make some forward progress."

SUCCESS AT LAGUNA SECA FOR TEAM ROADRACINGWORLD.COM SUZUKI

Team Roadracingworld.com Suzuki enjoyed an encouraging weekend of racing in front of over 105,000 fans at Laguna Seca, scoring yet another AMA Pro SuperSport podium finish while also making vital progress with their developing American Superbike program.

New parts for Chris Ulrich's #18 GSX-R1000 aided the Californian's adaptation to his 2009-spec machine this weekend. He qualified on the inside of the fourth row, posting the 13^th fastest time at 1:26.751 and then went one better in the race, coming home twelfth following a hectic affair that included a pair of opening-lap red flags and Safety Car and grid-related confusion.

After suffering from some set-up woes at the most recent two rounds, Ulrich felt the weekend marked a turning point in the season even if the race didn't go exactly to plan.

"There are some things I don't understand about that race that went on, mainly how some of those guys who crashed were able to restart in good grid positions, but I guess we'll leave that up for others to figure out," said Ulrich, who is ranked twelfth in the championship with 92 points.

"We made a lot of progress over the weekend. We had some problems adapting to the K9 but we got some new parts and the bike was working good. We were a lot better off in practice.

"It came down to a decision on Sunday morning because it wasn't quite steering as well as we wanted and we thought about a ride height change. Instead, we decided to do it with some rebound to the front and it didn't work. We took the rebound out and it was a little bit better but for the most part, we missed it today. There were a lot of encouraging things that came out of the weekend, especially in qualifying. We are a lot closer. This should be the turnaround for the rest of the season."

Russell Wikle put in another terrific effort in SuperSport action in what was a non-points paying West Division race weekend for him. The Alabaman qualified second on the grid at 1:30.745 and backed that up with a runner-up result in the race, his fifth podium ride of the '09 season.

"You can't be disappointed with a podium finish but I'd like to be on top," Russ said. "I got a mediocre start, second into Turn 2 and I really wanted to put my head down and fight for the win but I made a couple mistakes early on. After that I concentrated on bringing it home in second place."

Wikle was joined on the team by the up-and-coming James Rispoli for the weekend. Rispoli, 17 years old and from Attica, New York, finished a terrific fourth in the one-off ride, crossing the stripe less than a second away from giving the squad another podium result.

"It was a great weekend, overall. It was awesome. I had never ridden this bike before or raced here at Laguna Seca, so we knew we had some work in front of us. We got faster with every lap the entire weekend. It was phenomenal and I had a lot of fun and learned a lot,” said James.

Ulrich said, "We had two kids that did great for us this weekend. First off, Russell was solid as usual and did a fantastic job once again. We're going to kick up the support for him for the remainder of the season and hopefully he can get some wins.

"James did a great job riding for us this weekend as well. He was a bit of an unknown but he ended up fighting for the podium and we see a lot of talent in James. We'll be keeping an eye on him."

Santiago Villa put in yet another gritty AMA Pro Daytona SportBike performance riding at less than 100%. The Colombian put in his third top-20 result in his last four attempts, finishing 18^th position, right behind Wikle who took 17^th.

Team Roadracingworld.com Suzuki will next head to Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course on July 17-19. Mid-Ohio. The circuit has traditionally been a strong venue for Ulrich, who claimed a victory at the track in 2002.

"I love Mid-Ohio," Chris said. "We've been getting some fantastic support out of Öhlins and we're making great progress and everyone is behind us, so we excited for the remainder of the season."