Oakland, CA – Floyd Landis and two-time defending NRC points champion Rory Sutherland will lead the OUCH Pro Cycling Team Presented by Maxxis into the 2009 NRC opening Redlands Classic, beginning Thursday, March 26.

“The team has had great preparation for this race,” noted team directeur sportif Mike Tamayo. “The guys really came together and raced hard at California, and that showed with our results in Mexico.”

Last year’s Redlands Classic saw NRC champion Sutherland fly to a win in the opening prologue and take a hard-earned 3rd place in the final road stage en route to 4th overall. While Sutherland will still be a marked man, other teams will have to contest with the presence of Landis as well.

“Having serious cards like Landis and Sutherland to play will make things that much more difficult for other teams,” Tamayo said. “It takes the pressure off of Rory because everyone was watching him last year.”

So will the presence of the teams two Canadians, rising stage race star Cameron Evans and sprinter Andrew Pinfold. Both riders enter Redlands on good form after each took a stage win at the Vuelta Mexico earlier this month, and Pinfold rode his way onto the podium in two other stages. Their ability to win out of breaks, as demonstrated in Mexico, adds another element of danger to the team. Joining them on break patrol will be the ever-aggressive Bradley White.

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The contenders duked it out in the final climb of the Queen stage at the Tour of Utah. Before the stage, 13 riders were separated by 38 seconds in the general classification but after slogging it over 14,778 feet (4,504 m) of climbing over a 98-mile (159 km) road race, the race now comes down to 2 pretenders to the title.

Utah native Jeff Louder (BMC) was triumphant in front of a home crowd and crossed the line first, pointing in pride at his jersey. Yellow jersey Blake Caldwell (Garmin-Chipotle) crossed the line in second place, 13 seconds back. With time bonuses on the line, Caldwell now has a 7-second buffer over Louder going into the final stage, a relatively flat 12-mile (19.3 km) out and back time trial that starts and finishes at the Miller Motorsports Park in Tooele.

Jeff Louder (BMC) points to his BMC jersey when crossing the line in front of an enthusiastic crowd

A break of 7 riders went off in the first 10 miles of the race, and got almost a five minute advantage before being caught on the HC climb up Alpine Loop at around the 55-mile marker. One participant in the break was green jersey Brad White (Successful Living), on his third break of the race, who nailed down the Sprint jersey as no one contended the sprints.

The lone survivor of the break, Mike Creed (Rock Racing) grabbed the KOM points before re-integrating the chasing dwindling field.

By the time the lead group made it to the bottom of the final climb to Snowbird, the numbers were down to about 25 riders with all the contenders present and ready for action. Oscar Sevilla (Rock Racing) was the first one to launch a move which caused ripples in the group. Garmin-Chipotle duo including Caldwell started to chase him down which caused the BMC duo of Louder and Darren Lill to react and chase the argyle pair. Meanwhile, KOM Glen Chadwick (Team Type 1) flew away, passed Sevilla and got a 20 seconds gap to the chasers, but Caldwell went after him and passed the Kiwi.

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Two in a row for the Garmin-Chipotle team. This time is was Blake Caldwell who emerged from a break to win the stage and take over the yellow jersey from his teammate’s shoulders. After 85 miles (137 km) and 10,585 feet (3.226 m) of climbing, Caldwell outsprinted his two-man breakaway companion Darren Lill (BMC) to win stage 2 at the Tour of Utah. Bringing the chase group, 18 seconds behind for third place was BMC’s Jeff Louder.

Caldwell is now the new leader in the overall classification, with Lill in second place at 4 seconds back, and Jason Donald (Garmin-Chipotle) drops down from first to third.

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The first stage of the 2008 Larry H Miller Tour of Utah is in the books. Under blue skies with temperatures reaching the low 90s, Garmin-Chipotle’s Jason Donald won the 3-way sprint against his breakaway companions Sheldon Deeny (Fan Sports Network) and Brad White (Successful Living).

The field crossed the line 19 seconds after the winner, with Ricardo Escuela (Successful Living) winning the sprint.

An ecstatic Donald also grabbed the yellow leader’s jersey with added time bonus of 10 seconds. White won enough points in the three HotSpot Sprint lines to win the green sprint leader’s jersey.

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Defending team, the Successful Living p/b Parkpre team stacked the deck by putting three man in an four-man breakaway. Their designated sprinter for that day, JR Grabinger won the the Sea Otter NRC Circuit Race, his teammate Brian Jensen took second and Rock Racing’s David Clinger survived the 3-on-1 sprint to take third place.

Grabinger takes the sprint ahead of Jensen and Clinger; Photos c. Lyne Lamoureux

The four men in the breakaway, the three Successful Living riders, Grabinger, Jensen and Brad White worked well with solo Clinger to create an unsurmountable gap and lap the field.

“We were worried about him, he was riding really strong today, we had talked a few scenarios over and Steve was talking to us on the radio, I guess when it came down to it we had the confidence to do a leadout at the end and pull out a win, that’s what we did.” said Grabinger.

“I’ve been in the situation a lot of times with 3 or 4 guys and you’re the only one from your team. Basically all I could have done is follow then if they start attacking but they were so confident that they were going to win the sprint, they could box me in, put me in the barriers, they just set tempo to the line. I told them that I wasn’t going be too aggressive, if they kept if to the line, I was going to sprint it out with them.” said Clinger.
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