Team Roadracingworld.com Suzuki teammates Chris Ulrich and Robertino Pietri gained respect and appreciation for motorcycle road racers after giving rides to four representatives of the local general interest media Thursday at Miller Motorsports Park (MMP), in Tooele, Utah. “I thought that was the most exhilarating experience I’ve had in motorsports in a long time,” said Jim Cooksey, host of “Racing Fan,” a weekly motorsports talk show that airs Saturdays on KFAN-AM 1320 and a racer with extensive experience in cars and on motocross bikes. “I’ve wrecked about everything you can wreck, but that was an awesome experience. I’ve got a whole lot of respect for what these guys are doing, even more than I had previously. It’s awesome. I tell you what, if I was 20 years old again I would be trying this.” Asked what he thought of his two-lap, 160-mph ride around the 3.06-mile Outer Course at MMP, Salt Lake Tribune sports reporter Jay Drew said, “Fear at first, but then exhilaration. You get to where you don’t want it to end. Your heart’s beating fast and the adrenaline is flowing. You gain a great respect for guys who do this all the time. It feels like one little mistake and you’re in big trouble out there. You put your trust in those guys and it’s just exhilarating, just a chance of a lifetime. I’ve been out here with cars, and it’s 10 times better with these things.” “I thought it was gonna be the ride of a lifetime, and it was probably the ride of about 10 or 11 lifetimes,” said KTVX Channel 4 (the ABC affiliate in Salt Lake City) Sports Anchor Dana Green after riding on Ulrich’s two-seat GSX-R1000 AMA Superstock racebike. “I’ve never gone that fast or got that close to the ground. Coming around turns I was involuntarily laughing. I was having so much fun. I can’t believe what these bikes can do. Like someone else said, I know they were taking it easy on me, but that was the most fun speed-experience — and I’ve skied, done every roller coaster in the world and that was by far the best thing I’ve ever done. Whoooohooo!” Green filmed several extra pieces with Ulrich at MMP and said he planned to air as many as four segments beginning Thursday night. The fourth and final rider was Danny Allen, co-host of a variety show on Salt Lake City’s KJZZ Channel 14 called “B. All Over” and a former motorcycle racer, who gained a new-found respect for Ulrich and Pietri, who rode in close proximity to Ulrich on the track to give the guests a better sense of actually racing. “These guys are the real deal,” said Allen, after he finished shouting with exhilaration and high-fiving everyone in range. “My concern coming out was putting myself on the back of a bike doing 150 mph with a guy I just met, you know? You’ve got to trust that guy. Two corners into this I was laughing and whooping and hollering. And this cat was good. I’m not kidding. This guy was good. “The coolest part, I think, is having watched it on TV, and you can be an armchair driver wannabe, like we all are watching these guys scream around there, but you have no idea how frickin’ fast these guys are going until you’re leaning down like this and Skippy here [Pietri] comes up — at a buck and a half — leaning right next to you. That was unbelievable. That was totally cool. It was awesome, absolutely awesome.” After completing his strafing duties during the two-seater rides, Pietri, who hails from Venezuela, and Colombian Martin Cardenas (who rides for Team M4 EMGO Suzuki) did on-camera and live phone-in interviews with CANAL 23, a Spanish-language television station in Salt Lake City, and KXTA-AM 1600 “La Bonita,” a Spanish-language radio station in the area. For the last seven years Team Roadracingworld.com Suzuki and Team M4 EMGO Suzuki (known formerly as Team Valvoline EMGO Suzuki), have offered rides on two-seat racebikes to expose the sport of motorcycle road racing to mainstream media representatives and enhance their understanding and appreciation of two-wheeled competition.