Breaks 21 year-old record set by Andy Hampsten a former Giro d’ Italia Winner

“Chepe” Garcia Wins Toyota of Stuart Cycling Classic

Bend, OR– After seven weeks of pain and frustration due to his high-speed crash at this years Tour de Georgia, Ben Day finally turned the corner by winning the famed 9.8 mile Vail Pass Hill Climb in a record pace of 25:48, beating the old course record by 45 seconds set by Andy Hampsten in the 1987 Coors Classic. “I spent five days last week in Durango with a teammate’s chiropractor who helped me get my full pedal stroke back and I have to say it felt great to not ride with pain for once”. Day continued, “There was definitely a tailwind, but I guess you have to take what the course, gives you and today, it happened to be in my favor for a change”.

Day’s Teammate Chris Baldwin was second place in a time of 26:29 also besting the record by 4 seconds. For Baldwin, this is a good sign of the form he is building after what’s been a slow start to his season by his own standards.

Back in Stuart, Florida, “Chepe” Garcia and Justin England bathed in the hot June sun typical of the Toyota of Stuart Cycling Classic held each year by John Pierson’s Toyota. Toyota-United riders look forward each year to attending this race as Mr. Pierson hosts the riders and a first class bike race.

After placing 3rd and 5th place in Saturday’s opening criterium, John Pierson sat down with “Chepe” and Justin to express how important it was to him that they win Sunday’s race sponsored by his company. Chepe and Justin regrouped and feeling the pressure, came out firing on all cylinders Sunday with Garcia lapping the field with four others riders and then out sprinting his breakaway companions in the finale for what was his 3rd victory of the season. According to Garcia’s account, Pierson was ecstatic of the teams win and could not have been more delighted to see a Toyota-United rider win his race.

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The 2007 NRC winner Rory Sutherland (HealthNet-Maxxis) went flat out like a lizard drink’n and crossed the line with the fastest time, winning the Redlands Prologue – Sun Time Trial, in nine minutes and fifty-one seconds. Coming in second, with less than 2 seconds slower is Ben Day (Toyota-United). Rounding off the podium, is Dominique Rollin (Toyota-United) with 8 seconds slower than Sutherland.

“It’s hard for everybody. Today a lot of things seem to slide in right, whereas last week in San Dimas they just didn’t happen, I didn’t get it together last week and it’s a matter of trying to iron out those problems, and get the monkey off my back a week early.” said Sutherland about his race today.

Men’s Podium (l-r): Ben Day (Toyota-United), Rory Sutherland (HealthNet-Maxxis) and Dominique Rollin (Toyota-United)

The next stage is the Beaumont Road Race where the 194 men tackle a 138 km circuit race with 2 time bonuses on the line. HeathNet-Maxxis will have its job cut out for them defending the leaders jersey with Toyota-United placing 6 riders in the top fifteen positions. And Rock Racing still smarting from losing their lead in San Dimas and finishing on the second step of the podium, by one second, will be trying to move up Oscar Sevilla now in fourth place.

“It’s good that we have the yellow jersey, obviously you always want to be in the lead, but it’s not good when you look back and see Toyota’s got second and third right behind you, so it gives them some ammo against us. Honestly, it’s going to be hard, tactical racing, and you can’t discount Sevilla right within reach so we’ll see how the racing goes.” said Health Net-Maxxis Directeur Sportif Mike Tamayo.

The team is motivated. “We had a lot of illness at Tour of California, our staff got sick, our riders got sick, that virus went everywhere, plenty of people got sick so we’re happy to be done with it. We went to Taiwan had a great race there, we won fifteen out of sixteen jerseys available so it was a great race.” continued Tamayo.

Same as the women, riders and teams are expecting the Beaumont to finish in a field sprint, and that, again, the last stage, the Sunset road race, be the decisive stage in the Redlands Classic.

“I think it’s going to be a smaller bunch kick, a smaller bunch kick. I don’t think the course is hard enough to really break the field apart but you never know, if the right move goes…” said Tamayo about the upcoming stage 1.

Rory Sutherland (Health Net-Maxxis), winner

“It’s a very important race for the team and to be able to do that straight away is a really good thing for our morale. ”

“We just concentrate on today, today and tonight we’ll look at tomorrow. Like I told my good friends here, you get second and third so you can’t have too much of a better day. We’ll see what happens tomorrow, if you look at last year, so many dynamics change this race, so many things can happen especially on a day like Sunday, there’s no concession, it’s racing every single day, we’ll see what happens. If it works out, it works out, and if doesn’t, it doesn’t. We have a very capable group of guys, we’ll see what happens.”

(About his form) “It’s my job to be good pretty much the whole season, I’m trying to stay at a happy medium the whole season so to speak. “

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