Justin England Finishes Second On Climb To Oak Glen
Published by Unknown on Friday, March 23, 2007 at 3:47 PM.
Oak Glen, Calif. – Justin England of the Toyota-United Pro Cycling Team narrowly missed out on winning the Redlands Ford Oak Glen Road Race Friday at the Redlands Bicycle Classic.
The Toyota-United Pro Cycling Team member was out-sprinted to the finish line by Scott Moninger (BMC Racing Team), who won the 97.3-mile (156.6 km) race in four hours and five minutes. England finished in the same time to move into second place overall, seven seconds off the lead, halfway through the four-day National Race Calendar stage race. Anthony Colby (Colavita/ Sutter Home presented by Cooking Light) is third, 12 seconds back.
“I think Justin started his sprint a little too early,” Toyota-United Team Director Harm Jansen said. “I’m happy for Scott, though, too. If I step out of my role as team director, it’s great for the sport to see him win at Oak Glen.”
Toyota-United leads the team standings by 2:01 over Health Net presented by Maxxis and has four riders in the top 20 overall: England, Ivan Stevic (ninth, 1:26 behind), Chris Wherry (11th, 1:31 behind) and Burke Swindlehurst (18th, 2:14 behind).
Heading into the stage, England was ninth, five places behind the 40-year-old Moninger, who was three seconds faster in Thursday’s 3.1-mile (5 km) prologue. England said the two appeared to be evenly matched when it came down to the final sprint.“We played a little cat and mouse until 150 meters to go, then I hit it,” England said. “With 50 meters to go, he came around me. In the end, neither one of us was faster than the other. It just came down to timing the sprint right.”
Toyota-United instituted a number of moves over the course of Friday’s race to soften up the field heading into the final third of the race, which featured three categorized climbs. Ivan Dominguez figured into a three-man move that got away after 25 miles (40 km) had been covered. By earning intermediate sprint points before being swallowed up by the peloton before the second-to-last climb, Dominguez took the lead in the sprint competition.
“Ivan did a great job out there,” England said. “He helped save all the rest of us from having to do all the work behind.
When Dominguez’s group was caught, Toyota-United’s Sean Sullivan counter-attacked and only one rider followed. The pair worked together to build up to a minute’s lead before being passed on the ascent to Oak Glen.
“Our guys rode a great race,” Jansen said. “Everything pretty much went according to plan. We wanted to make sure we could take the sting out of people to have the numbers on the final climb.”
Halfway to the summit of the 3.5-mile climb, a group of five riders – including England – got a gap. They stayed together until 800 meters to go when England attacked hard. Only Moninger could stay with him.
The overall standings are not expected to change in Saturday afternoon’s 90-minute Centennial Bank/KWB Wealth Managers Criterium, which Jansen said Toyota-United will target for a stage win. Then it is back to making up England’s seven-second deficit on Sunday’s final stage, the 91.0-mile (146.5 km) Beaver Medical Group Sunset Road Race.
“I think we’ll do everything we can to try and get up the road and get that time back,” England said. “And it’s not just for me, either. We have three other guys – Chris Wherry, Chris Baldwin and Ivan Stevic – who are up there on GC who can hit it and send it up the road.”
