Team Roadracingworld.com Suzuki battled through another trying AMA Superstock Championship round this weekend at Road Atlanta, but a determined ride from Chris Ulrich allowed him to climb three championship positions heading into the upcoming season finale.
Still recovering from the hand injury he suffered at Road America, which subsequently ruled him out of two races, Ulrich clawed up from his third row, 11th-place qualifying position (1:28.099) to solidly contend in the race's top ten. After running 11th prior to an early red flag, Ulrich got a strong restart, running as high as sixth. After mixing it up with Kurtis Roberts and Ben Thompson during the contest, the Californian came away with a hard-earned seventh-place result in the end.
Unfortunately, teammate Robertino Pietri suffered another bout of bad luck, crashing on the opening lap after qualifying on the second row (8th, 1:27.306) while trying to pass some slower riders and getting off into the dirty part of the racing circuit. The Venezuelan suffered a possible separated shoulder in the fall.
Ulrich:
"This weekend was kind of typical of what's been going on lately. As my fitness improves, I'm able to pick up speed, but I'm still not all the way back yet, which is frustrating. I can only ride to my fitness level at the moment.? I got a good restart and passed a bunch of guys in the first turn. I was towing a few guys around, but I was missing some downshifts because my hand wasn't able to keep up on the clutch. I just tried to hang in there and we ended up seventh.
"As for 'Tino, he fried his clutch on the warm-up lap. He switched to his second bike but got caught out when some slower riders in front of him broke early and he was forced onto the inside part of the track and crashed."
Looking ahead to the season finale, Ulrich said, "I'm looking forward to it. I've got a whole month to get fully and completely healthy and I've got an endurance race between now and then. I'm only one point out of fifth so I'm planning on showing up there and dropping the hammer."
Heading into the September 27-28 2008 AMA Superstock Championship season finale at Laguna Seca, Ulrich is ranked sixth with 183 points -- just one point off of his stated goal of a top-five championship finish. Pietri is ninth with 164 points.
More information: amasuperbike.com
